With The Immoral Mr. Teas, Russ Meyer reshaped the adult film industry (such as it was in 1959). In a genre that ran to documentaries about nudist volleyball tournaments and shame-based soap operas about the dangers of VD, infidelity, and teen sex, The Immoral Mr. Teas was a colorful, well-photographed, breezily witty romp that suggested a gag cartoon from Playboy sprung to life. Mr. Teas (Bill Teas), a delivery man working for a dentist, gets his own teeth worked on, and, after emerging from the anesthetic, discovers that every woman who crosses his path appears to be naked. Mr. Teas find this disconcerting until he learns to relax and enjoy the passing parade. Tame by post-'60s standards, The Immoral Mr. Teas is still amusing for its easygoing charm and poke-in-the-ribs humor; Meyer single-handedly launched the "nudie cutie" boom of the early 1960s and began the most interesting career in American sex films. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
The name "Teas" is of course a homophone of the word tease, and one of the meanings of tease includes to sexually excite another person by subtle means, usually explicitly avoiding advancement to more potentially consequential erotic situations. The title character is played by Meyer's army buddy, Bill Teas, whose homophonic name Meyer happily exploits.
Background
Before this film was released, the only moving pictures exhibiting extensive nudity were either underground (covertly produced and distributed) pornographic films, typically distributed "under the counter" in 16 mm black and white movies, or naturist pictures, openly displayed in specialized movie theaters, usually under the cover of exhibiting the fun and freedom of nudism in naturist reserves (nudist camps).
A breakthrough
The Immoral Mr. Teas was the first American "above ground" movie since the pre-Codeearly sound era to show female nudity without the pretext of naturism. It is considered to be the first commercially viable American "skin flick" and popularized the nudie cutie genre. This movie exhibited a wry humor and an admirable respect for and appreciation of the beauty of the female form—comparable to that of sculptors and painters throughout the ages.
The movie consists of a series of short scenes. In a sense, no one is actually naked; we only see the nudity through the viewpoint and vivid imagination of Mr. Teas. Mr. Teas' mental constructions extend beyond the nudity (always exclusively of female characters)—there is an underlying surrealism in Mr. Teas' imagination that results in a number of genuinely bizarre situations.
It is arguable that the nudity seen in The Immoral Mr. Teas is now considered completely unremarkable by modern Hollywood R-rated movie standards.
A typical scene
Mr. Teas attends an appointment with his dentist, who must perform an extraction of a molar. Naturally, the dentist has an assistant—a stunningly beautiful and not-quite modestly dressed assistant. The application of analgesics appropriate to the procedure quickly releases Mr. Teas' fertile imagination, and we see the scene through this viewpoint. Rather than the typical equipment–cluttered dental office we are on a set—only a dentist, a dental chair, Mr. Teas, and the assistant are present—against a stark and simple background. Only now the assistant is completely nude. As the procedure is completed the dentist removes the molar from Mr. Teas' mouth—but rather than only a small object in the extraction pliers the molar has the appearance of a single large staghorn (deerantler) with a number of points. The body of the "molar" is white, while each tip (representing the roots of the molar) is colored a bloody red. Mr. Teas has paid a price for his lustful imagination.
