The Sex-Killer
Barry Mahon's voyeuristic The Sex-Killer (1966) has been one of my favorite films from Something Weird Video for some time, having purchased a VHS copy from their catalog about 15 years ago. Filmed on location in New York in (what appears to be) 16mm black & white, The Sex-Killer is the surreal and strange story of Tony, a creepy and reclusive worker in a 
Garment District mannequin factory. Tony’s favorite hobby, when not trying to sneak broken mannequins home with him for “dates” at a local bar, is to utilize his high-powered binoculars from the roof of his building on unsuspecting sunbathers (there was apparently a lot of nude rooftop sunbathing in those days). The film features Uta Erickson, Helena Clayton, Rita Bennett (a Mahon regular), and Sharon Kent as Tony’s various girlfriends/murder victims. Mahon was a film producer, director, writer, and cinematographer of various mid-sixties Z-grade movies. His directorial canon 
betrays a common theme: She Should Have Stayed in Bed (1963), Bunny Yeager's Nude Camera (1963), Nudes on Tiger Reef (1965), Nudes Inc. (1965), The Love Cult (1966), and P.P.S. - The Prostitutes Protective Society (1966). His first feature, however, was called Cuban Rebel Girls aka Assault of the Rebel Girls (1959), which was co-written by and starred Errol Flynn in his last screen role, along with his 16-year old girlfriend Beverly Aadland. Flynn plays himself as a war correspondent, assisting Fidel Castro’s revolution against the Batista government. Flynn, who lived in Havana at the time, also appeared in the amazing lost-documentary 
by Victor Pahlen called "The Truth about Fidel Castro Revolution," recently released as Cuban Story. Barry Mahon, who had become close friends with Flynn, had a life story to match the tales recounted in Flynn’s hilarious autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways (also released in 1959, the year of Flynn’s death at age 50). Born and raised in California, Mahon volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1941 months before Pearl Harbor, earning an outstanding reputation as a fighter pilot before being shot down over the ocean on August 19 1942. Taken prisoner by the Germans, he was held at Stalag Luft III, where he helped dig the escape tunnels made famous by the John Sturges film The Great Escape (1963). The baseball-tossing character of Captain Hilts, played by Steve McQueen, was partly based on Mahon.
Barry Mahon's voyeuristic The Sex-Killer (1966) has been one of my favorite films from Something Weird Video for some time, having purchased a VHS copy from their catalog about 15 years ago. Filmed on location in New York in (what appears to be) 16mm black & white, The Sex-Killer is the surreal and strange story of Tony, a creepy and reclusive worker in a 
Garment District mannequin factory. Tony’s favorite hobby, when not trying to sneak broken mannequins home with him for “dates” at a local bar, is to utilize his high-powered binoculars from the roof of his building on unsuspecting sunbathers (there was apparently a lot of nude rooftop sunbathing in those days). The film features Uta Erickson, Helena Clayton, Rita Bennett (a Mahon regular), and Sharon Kent as Tony’s various girlfriends/murder victims. Mahon was a film producer, director, writer, and cinematographer of various mid-sixties Z-grade movies. His directorial canon 
betrays a common theme: She Should Have Stayed in Bed (1963), Bunny Yeager's Nude Camera (1963), Nudes on Tiger Reef (1965), Nudes Inc. (1965), The Love Cult (1966), and P.P.S. - The Prostitutes Protective Society (1966). His first feature, however, was called Cuban Rebel Girls aka Assault of the Rebel Girls (1959), which was co-written by and starred Errol Flynn in his last screen role, along with his 16-year old girlfriend Beverly Aadland. Flynn plays himself as a war correspondent, assisting Fidel Castro’s revolution against the Batista government. Flynn, who lived in Havana at the time, also appeared in the amazing lost-documentary 
by Victor Pahlen called "The Truth about Fidel Castro Revolution," recently released as Cuban Story. Barry Mahon, who had become close friends with Flynn, had a life story to match the tales recounted in Flynn’s hilarious autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways (also released in 1959, the year of Flynn’s death at age 50). Born and raised in California, Mahon volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1941 months before Pearl Harbor, earning an outstanding reputation as a fighter pilot before being shot down over the ocean on August 19 1942. Taken prisoner by the Germans, he was held at Stalag Luft III, where he helped dig the escape tunnels made famous by the John Sturges film The Great Escape (1963). The baseball-tossing character of Captain Hilts, played by Steve McQueen, was partly based on Mahon.
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