Main Cast: Sal Mineo, Juliet Prowse, Jan Murray, Elaine Stritch, Margot Bennett
Release Year: 1965
Country: US
Run Time: 91 minutes
Plot
Shot on location in Manhattan during the mid-'60s, Who Killed Teddy Bear? is a startling piece of dramatic filmmaking. Juliet Prowse portrays Nora, a deejay and hostess at a sleazy midtown discothèque who starts to receive obscene phone calls. Nora dismisses them, until she crosses paths with Bill Madden (Jan Murray), a grim, obsessive police lieutenant specializing in sex crimes (his obsession, as he later reveals, derives from the fact that his own wife was assaulted and murdered while out alone one night); he manages both to offend and frighten Nora with his depth of knowledge and suspicions about the kinds of people who commit those crimes. They develop a close but wary relationship even as the caller, whoever he is, proves to know not only a great deal about her personal life, but also about events transpiring right inside her apartment. She goes about her life as best she can, attending auditions and making the rounds of theaters, and socializing with her co-workers at the club, including the bus boy, Larry (Sal Mineo), who seems lonely and has a very sweet younger sister who is mildly retarded. She looks to her club manager (Elaine Stritch) for help, but then rejects her when she suspects that the older woman is attracted to her -- and then Stritch is killed by the stalker, by mistake, outside Nora's building when she is seen wearing the girl's coat. Nora tries to relax and looks to Larry for friendship, only to discover that he is the stalker. Madden also makes the connection, and figures out how he was observing her inside her apartment, but he's too late to save Nora from being assaulted. Larry ends up on the run from the police, who are in hot pursuit as he flees through Manhattan's streets. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
Joseph Cates' Who Killed Teddy Bear? was an astonishing piece of cinema in the 1960s, and has lost little of its impact in the four decades since it was released. Its extensive use of actual New York locations -- midtown's theater district, the sleazy clubs surrounding it, and the Central Park Children's Zoo all play big roles in the plot -- give the movie a piercingly realistic edge. The very frank dialogue and visuals as the stalker torments his victim with phone calls, and the depiction (though flashbacks) of how he was abused as a teenager, make this a difficult movie to watch, but also an extremely rewarding one. For starters, one does get a close and gritty look at the nasty underside of '60s popular culture -- not just loud music and dancing, but the sleazy sexual ethos of the era. The characters are a pathetic, damaged lot, even Nora (Juliet Prowse) before her attack seems annoying in her silliness and naïve nature; and the most damaged of all is the stalker Larry (Sal Mineo), who was himself a victim of abuse by a neighbor (depicted in very disturbing flashback sequences). Some of the details are confusing, such as the identity of Larry's abuser (was it his mother, as some audience members seem to believe, or a neighbor, as seems more likely?), but overall Who Killed Teddy Bear? is a compelling and intimate drama on a very difficult and disturbing subject, populated by characters who are dazzling in their corrupt natures. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Hank Aldrich - Art Director, Joseph Cates - Director, Angelo Ross - Editor, Joel Hirschhorn - Composer (Music Score), Al Kasha - Composer (Music Score), Bob Gaudio - Songwriter, Al Kasha - Songwriter, Joseph Brun - Cinematographer, Everett Rosenthal - Producer, Arnold Drake - Screenwriter
