Slideshow
WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR
U.S., 1965
Directed by Joseph Cates
With Sal Mineo, Juliet Prowse, Elaine Stritch, Jan Murray
Approx. 94 min. 35mm
The apex of lurid 60s exploitation pix, the long-buried TEDDY BEAR is a smorgasbord of Hollywood taboos: voyeurism, pornography, masturbation, incest, child abuse, transvestism, lesbianism and the most explicit rape sequence yet filmed. In sharp contrast to his innocent but equally disturbed Plato in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, Sal Mineo stars as a porno-obsessed, body-building proto- Travis Bickle, with Juliet Prowse as a disco dancer/hostess whose seemingly inevitable states of undress are spied on by an unknown Peeping Tom. After one too many X-rated phone calls, it's erstwhile comedian/ game show host Jan Murray on the case, as a sex-crime-specializing cop whose research includes re-playing victims interviews, while his 10-year-old daughter listens in next door; plus all-too-friendly sympathy from disco boss Elaine Stritch. TEDDY BEAR seethes with a sweatily frustrated libidinousness: as the camera caressingly photographs the faceless voyeur in his jockey shorts, shorts, you'd swear you were watching a recent Calvin Klein commercial. Shot on location in New York in a glistening black and white recalling SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, TEDDY BEAR offers a unique documentary record of mid-60s Times Square sex shops, when magazines like Teenage Nudist were displayed alongside books by Frank Harris and William Burroughs.
Reviews
“Every frame is imbued with a glorious sleazy quality that rendered it impossible to cut. Forty years later it can still shock, more for its ahead-of-the-curve qualities.”
– The Guardian