The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, April 27-May 3
Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965)
Directed by Joseph Cates
A scuzzy, lurid low-budget independent film partially shot in Manhattan, particularly the peep shows in Time Square, Who Killed Teddy Bear? is steeped in perversions of the past and present. Norah (Juliet Prowse), a young woman working at a discotheque, starts getting harassed by a garbled voice over the phone. She enlists the protection of a police lieutenant (Jan Murray) who turns out to be a piece of work. Doggedly obsessed with sexual deviancy, the lieutenant pours over testimonials and books freely in his home, exposing his little daughter to the material in the process. Fearful of this fanatic, Norah stays with her considerate boss (Elaine Stritch). But when she makes a pass, Norah leaves in a state of shock. Amid these encounters, Norah keeps bumping into a quiet, soft-spoken waiter at the discotheque. As the waiter, Sal Mineo is the film’s standout performer. Small and muscular, tender and tough, sweet and psychotic, he evokes the shattered innocence suggested by the film’s title. Tanner Tafelski (April 30, 7:30pm at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “An Early Clue to the New Direction: Queer Cinema Before Stonewall”)
