L'immorale Mr. Teas

This is Russ Meyer's first venture into stimulating pleasantly adult films… For 1959, it was a big sensation… By today's standards, however, it is quite dull... It is a difficult film to rate because it is so delightful and adorable, but the story is almost nonexistent and certainly dated…

The story is about a dirty-minded voyeur... Through the course of a day, he sees a number of good-looking, big breasted ladies, and tries to attract them for long periods of time... On the weekend, he goes to the beach where he comes across a photographer and a topless model…

Russ Meyer was very careful not to place his characters in sexual situations, but concentrated on rousing the audience… Mr. Teas finds himself with a nude female analyst, for example, but does not try to seduce her…

Such tease was a matter of the film's survival... For the very moment nudity turned into a sexual encounter, it would have certainly been censored

This is Russ Meyer's debut 1959 feature, a nudie movie typical of similar films of the time.

For the brief 61 minutes running time, Mr. Teas wanders about his daily business as a dental supplies salesman, ogling improbably-dressed (for the time) receptionists, dental assistants and waitresses without a care that he might get caught (he never does). Amusingly, he usually does this with his pushbike at his side and his clipboard in his hand. Occasionally, he daydreams of more erotic situations where the girls are completely nude (but never seen full frontal of course, this is the fifties). These fantasies begin and end with an overlaid multicoloured swirl and a boingy sound effect.

Seemingly though, he never wants to do more than look and pull silly faces. There is no sex here, Teas never gets to touch any of these girls, undoubtedly due to the limitations of what could be shown in a releasable film of the time. The women pose and undress but do nothing more racy than that.

The pace is very sedate, nothing happens for five minutes at a time, we just see Teas riding his bike or getting the bus. Meyer fans used to the highly pneumatic girls in his later films might find the rather more conventionally-shaped women here disappointing, but they are generally reasonably good looking.

The direction sometimes exhibits Meyer's trademarks, rapid cuts, cleavage close-ups and tilted angles, but is far more conventional than his later work. There is no dialogue here, just a voiceover that pops up from time to time to explain a few extraneous details.

Overall, this is a sweet, meandering movie, a bit like a Jacques Tati film but with less jokes and frequent nudity. The humour comes in patches, sometimes it is intentional, sometimes not. Seeing Teas spying on an undressing lady virtually right in front of her eyes provides some daft laughs.

Watch out for Meyer himself as a patron in a burlesque club, and June Wilkinson in a role which requires nothing more of her to be seen than her naked breasts at a window.

6/10.

Yep, my review has nothing to do with the gorgeous blonde swimming in the dirty surf ( due to the tide and sand, not pollution) or the fact that most of the film is about a guy on his bike delivering false teeth to dentists, or the gorgeous women of assorted facial features and builds...all a bonus. But mind you, this is PG 13 material in this film and harmless and quaint. No sexual situations, or any interaction physically. The reason this movie stands out, is the photography, Eastman Color...wow...these locations are awesome. Now if you have the chance to watch this movie on Ultra HD calibrated it gives you a personal and real feeling of LA and Brentwood before the glut. Many films of the day featured downtown LA, or the wonderful exotic parks. Rarely do we get a chance to see the rest of Cali, the places where people lived, caught the bus, and did their everyday living. The nice thing is as Mr. Teas rides around on his bike, we get a very exact time capsule of Cali, 1959. And for that, I say sit back and enjoy this afternoon break where the beautiful women are the icing, but not the cake..the location is.

This movie contains some nude scenes, but there is no frontal nudity, because of the time it was made (1959) Although the film has no dialogue , only narration, it's nice to see the way early adult films had to adhere to the strict codes of the 50's. The movie is about a dental parts salesman, who can't help but notice the sexy women in the dentist's office, at the bar and at the beach. Throughout the movie he imagines them nude, and pictures them in suggesting poses. Every time he daydreams about these women nude, he snaps out of it and goes about daily life. The movie is a must see for movie buffs and those interested in history or the American pop-culture of the 50's.

The existential Mr.Teas represents to me: avant garde 'Beatnik Art' so well parodied in the pages of 'Playboy' magazine circa.1959.He is a free-thinker: 'searching' for the inner meanings & thoughts subdued by the forced conformity of the 1950s.The mental undressing of the ladies he encounters is his statement of individuality in the doomed pluralist mediocrity of the San Francisco he inhabits. Mr Teas retreats from the disillusioned dentist delivery-man to his licentious alter-ego; fishing in the lagoon , cavorting in 'The Raincheck Room' & a diner with the waitress.Then with 'Nana',a sensational burlesque dancer that even Russ Meyer himself applauds vigorously. He seems to represent the repressed everyman in all of us.Mr Meyer began his illustrious 'sex-ploitation' film catalogue with an 'Tati'-esque artistic creation.A total masterpiece!.