Sitting somewhere between art and sleaze, Who Killed Teddy Bear? is the epitome of gritty US Sixties cinema – the sort of film that was always going to distress the British film censors of the time (who, inevitably, banned it) and was generally bypassed by critics who invariably dismissed it as exploitative trash. In that sense, it sits alongside Sam Fuller’s The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor, The Incident and – if we go down the more blatantly exploitation route – underrated roughies like David F. Friedman’s The Defilers. Like those films, this is a slickly produced black-and-white film that carefully balances the unsavoury, the melodramatic and the respectable as it takes a deep dive into the darker side of humanity.
In the case of Who Killed Teddy Bear?, things start off with an obscene phone call and then get progressively odder and grubbier, as the recipient, Norah Dain (Juliet Prowse) – a would-be actress who works at a low-rent night club run by lesbian Marian Freeman (Elaine Stritch) – starts a curious relationship with Lieutenant Dave Madden (Jan Murray), who is investigating the case. Madden is a troubled character – after his wife was raped and murdered, he began to descend into a world of sleaze, developing an obsession with perversion that seems a little too personal – at home, he listens to lurid recordings from the cases he works on, either unaware or uninterested in the fact that his young daughter is hearing all this stuff too. Norah, unsurprisingly, starts to think that the obscene phone caller – who has now progressed to stalking her – might actually be the cop who is investigating the case.
In fact (spoiler alert), her stalker is nightclub busboy Lawrence Sherman (Sal Mineo), who is all sorts of screwed up. Living at home with his mentally subnormal, child-like sister who is sometimes just that little bit too innocently seductive for comfort, he takes his frustrations out by walking the New York streets, looking at the sex shops and smut theatres (and providing a great insight into 1965-era sleaze, as he visits movie theatres showing Hollywood’s World of Flesh and passes shops full of magnificently sordid paperbacks) – and, of course, by secretly stalking his workmate Norah.
While the obscene phone calls are the central point of grubbiness in the film, what’s remarkable about Who Killed Teddy Bear? is just how downright unsavoury the whole thing is. Everyone here seems predatory – Stritch’s character seems supportive but is really just interested in seducing Norah, becoming unpleasant and condescending when her advances are spurned, while Madden seems almost as damaged as the people he is pursuing. In comparison, Mineo’s screwed-up misfit is almost the most sympathetic character – outside Prowse, of course. Sure, he’s a sexual terrorist, but he’s also a pathetic, screwed-up individual who is desperately looking for love in the only way he knows how.
Curiously, a bit of research reveals that this film is something of a gay cinema classic, thanks to Mineo’s brooding, sweaty and often shirtless performance. Certainly, Mineo – a gay icon in his own right – spends a fair amount of time in the gym and wearing outrageously tight swimming trunks that leave nothing to the imagination, while the film definitely, relentlessly objectifies him throughout (even Norah is moved to comment on his “very nice body”), but it’s hard to see how anyone as damaged as this character could seem sexy. Well, maybe he could, who knows? Plenty of people are attracted to violent criminals and serial killers, after all. In any case, Mineo is impressive as hell in this film, bringing real character to what could have been a simple caricature. But then, the whole cast is on top form – Stritch is superbly bitchy and pathetic, Murray admirable as the cop who can’t see that he’s “joined the animals” and Prowse – as the only really decent person in the film – is charming and appealing, ensuring that we really do care about what happens to her. When she teaches Lawrence to dance at the end of the film, it feels genuinely joyful and so makes their secret relationship feel all the more tragic. He might’ve had a genuine relationship with her if only he’d known how to ask. How sad.
Director Joseph Cates (father of Phoebe!) brings a slick style and a sense of class to the proceedings, and the crisp monochrome brings a sharpness to the film. While the pacing might be a touch slow, the film never feels as though it is dragging, and although the film wallows in the grubby, it never really feels gratuitously sleazy. This is exploitation with a sense of style, something that perhaps makes it all the more unsettling – it’s easy to dismiss sleazy cinema when it is unremitting trash, but less straightforward when the film has the look and feel of a high-end drama. And the ending is impressively bleak, as it suggests that no one has come away from all this untouched. The overwhelming feeling of the film is one of a vague disgust that transfers onto the viewer – this really is one of those films where the simple act of watching it makes you feel a little unclean.
DAVID FLINT
Like what we do? Support us and help us do more!
As you say, Who Killed Teddy Bear? was banned by the BBFC. It took me nearly 50 years to catch up with it: it was eventually released on DVD with a “15.” Sal Mineo’s first big break with Hollywood pretty much finished his film career and definitely finished Juliet Prowse’s. From here onwards Sal got involved in more and more off-the-wall projects including “The Wrong People”. But that’s another story. Another interesting connection: script by Arnold Drake, who wrote one of my favourite proto-nasties “The Flesh Eaters”.
Some background reading on the cast brought up a startling LA Times headline – ‘Juliet Prowse Bitten Again by Same Leopard’.
That seems especially unlucky.