Il sadico

Very much ahead of its time - this cult film vanished almost without trace after it was released, and it's very hard to find copies of it nowadays. So I consider myself fortunate to have been exposed to this sleaze-ball of a movie.

The highlight for me was in one of the final scenes where Sal Mineo and Juliet Prowse shimmy to one of the sassiest, silliest 60s dance tunes ever invented. Sal's wearing a little cut-off shirt and as he freaks out, more and more of his midriff is exposed. Sal's a long way from Rebel Without A Cause here, and looking all the better for it. This scene is worth the entrance fee alone. The title sequence is also hilariously evocative.

Full of weird characters, almost EVERYONE in this movie has a dirty little dark side waiting to be shown.

Pretty, young Juliet Prowse is a NYC discotheque DJ being stalked by an unassuming sex-psycho(Sal Mineo) in this flawed but hard-hitting post noir shocker, a film perched on the median between arthouse and grindhouse which might appeal to enthusiasts of Sam Fuller's contemporaneous work.

Performances are strong from the key players(especially Elaine Stritch as Prowse's inured lesbian boss, Jan Murray as the solicitous investigator, and Mineo...a deeply disturbed but ultimately pitiable predator). Unfortunately, the film is blemished markedly by the comically written and overplayed character of Mineo's little sister, doomed to eternal childhood as the result of a tragic accident.

Though there is intermittent creative camera-work at hand, production values are pretty low overall. Fortunately, the tawdriness of the whole affair calls for just that, and WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR succeeds, perhaps despite itself. It's a stark and quite depressing rumination on obsession, loneliness and perversion which touches brazenly on every taboo in the book. Somehow, this rife lurid sensationalism feels strangely at-odds with itself...the tone here seems more sententious than defiant, possibly an ill-boding advisory propelled by the whiling fears of 60s-era reactionaries. The times, they were a-changing, and many at the far-right felt the nation's moral compass had become a pinwheel in the wind.

. 7.5/10.

Every now and again, a movie washes up on the fringes of the industry that's unlike anything else of its time – or any time. Who Killed Teddy Bear (no question mark) certainly qualifies; rarely discussed or even mentioned, it's not quite forgotten, either – it's hard to forget.

By 1965, the barriers were starting to be breached in what could be shown, or even implied, on the screen (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf dates from that year). But Who Killed Teddy Bear rubs, brusquely and suggestively, against just about every taboo obtaining then or now. It's a New York story, but of the grotty 1960s, when Manhattan led the nation as an example of how American cities were surrendering to crime and vice and ugliness at the core.

Spinning platters in a seedy discotheque, Juliet Prowse starts getting obscene phone calls then finds a decapitated teddy bear in her apartment. Police detective Jan Murray takes the case, which holds an obsessive interest for him. Four years earlier his wife had been raped and murdered; now the world of perversion and fetishism has become his life, both professionally and privately (despite a young daughter, who listens to him listening to his lurid tapes from her bedroom). Prowse becomes so shaken by the stalking that she can't quite trust him, or for that matter her tough-as-nails boss Elaine Stritch, who, invited home to serve as protection, makes a pass at her. Shown the door, Stritch, in a slip and fur coat, wanders the dark streets and back alleys, where....

Top billing goes to Sal Mineo, 10 years after his debut as Plato in Rebel Without A Cause, as a waiter in the club. Back home he has a child-like grown sister, whom he locks in the closet when he's making the rounds of the porn shops and peep shows near Times Square. Though his character isn't gay, he's served up like prime, pre-Stonewall beefcake, halfway between raw and blue; towards the end, when Prowse teaches him to dance, he erupts like a go-go boy.

The movie bears all the marks of a starvation budget, but for once the saturated photography and jumpy cutting seem just right. The odd but savvy cast – even the young Daniel J. `Travanty' makes his debut as a deaf-mute bouncer – brings from Broadway and east-coast television a rough edge that's far from Hollywood's buffed and smooth product. But it's the vision of the TV-reared director, Joseph Cates, and writers Arnold Drake and Leon Tokatyan that makes Who Killed Teddy Bear so hard to shake. Neither a tidy thriller nor a nuanced character study, it nonetheless has a trump card to play: It's the real McCoy,a genuine creepshow.

"Who Killed Teddy Bear" is irresistible trash, an utterly sleazy film that wallows in B-movie murk without apology. The performances are fine (with the camera leering at the often half-dressed Mineo and Prowse), the script is the stuff of now-extinct 42nd Street grindhouses, and the cinematography seems right out of an early '60s voyeuristic fantasy. This one is guaranteed to touch a salacious chord in anyone with the nerve to sit through.

This film is truly a work of art of the highest magnitude and no, I am not kidding. Shot in glorious, high-contrast black-and-white, it reeks of exploitation from the note of the cheesy theme song all the way through the strobe-cut ending and every horn-blaring, high-heeling, hip-grinding moment in between. Sal Mineo plays a busboy obsessed with aspiring actress/club DJ Juliet Prowse (and Prowse is at her foxiest in this one, with her pencil skirts, kitten heels and cat eyes), coming off like a perverted puppy dog.

The obscene phone call bits--all heavy breathing, bulging tighty whiteys and sweat--will make you want to leave the theatre and take a shower. Or, if that isn't nasty enough for you, how about the scene with bulldyke Elaine Stritch fondling Prowse's fur (so to speak), or the retarded kid sister locked in the closet or the policeman obsessively playing audio tapes of various twisted criminal's confessions as his daughter listens wide-eyed from the other side of the door? Or how about the "twist lesson" that brings the film to it's climax (no pun intended)? Another asset of this great piece of cinema are its New York City location shots, especially when Mineo goes walking the city at night, looking for filth in scenes that must've influenced "Taxi Driver" (also love the W.S. Burroughs titles in the window of the "dirty bookshop"). I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. It's not available on video (Curses!), so if it's ever screened at the theater or on TV in your area, be there.