Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Fantastic!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

**SPOILERS** Sal Mineo lets it all hang out in this psychological thriller as the sex crazed and obsessed busboy Larry Sherman who's fixated on beautiful Norah Dain, played by tall and leggy Juliet Prowse, a disk jockey in the midtown Manhattan disco that he works at.Larry had it rough in his attempts in striking up relationships with women over the years which for the most parts ended up just being one night affairs. Shy and a bit insecure in his ability in trying to make it with the fairer sex Larry opts to just roam the city's red light district sneaking in and out of X-rated book stores and peep shows for his personal and adult entertainment. The only women that Larry feels comfortable with is hookers-who's only interest in him is how much he can pay them-whom he can barley afford due to his meager salary as a minimum wage, who depends on tips for a living, busboy.Larry's second passion in getting himself off is spying on women with his binoculars from his apartment window. It just so happens that Norah lives across the street from Larry's apartment in a walk-up she just recently sublet from a friend of hers!We also get a glimpse of one of the many reasons that makes Larry tick very early in the movie as we see Larry having sex with-what seems to be-a hooker as his little sister Edi,Margot Bennett, catches him in the act. Shocked at what she sees Edi slips and falls down a flight of stairs, with her precious little Teddy Bear in hand, cracking her skull and leaving her brain damaged. Feeling responsible for Edi's condition Larry has completely taken control of her life having Edi locked up in a closet and away from any, other then himself, human contact. Larry feels that Edi, who's now 19, will end up turning tricks like most of the women that he associates with!While not being occupied with Edi and not being that stable of a person himself Larry's obsession with Norah now goes from just spying on her to calling Norah up at all hours of the day and night and terrorizing her with obscene-mostly huffing and puffing-phone calls. It's when Larry starts to get personal with Norah and knowing things about her-like where she works and lives-that makes her feel threatened by his constant and unwanted phone calls. It's then that Norah goes to the police to see what they can do, after finding out just who he is, to stop and arrest the heavy breathing creep.Putting Police Let. Dave Madden, Jan Murray, on the case has Norah feel that he himself is some kind of sex pervert in his obsession of sex crime victims who's conversations he secretly records, without their knowledge, and endlessly plays back and listens to in his apartment! All this while Let. Madden has his 15 year-old daughter Pam, played by Diane Moore who's actually Jan Murray's real life daughter, listening in!One afternoon as Larry is pumping himself up in the local gym he spots Norah in a sexy bathing suit who by inviting him to take a swim with her in the pool makes Larry more crazier then ever and almost unable to control himself! Later we get to see Larry do what he does best by making a B-line to Times Square and immersing himself in all the X-rated books magazines and peep shows available to him. That's Larry's way of cooling off his libido and keeping him from doing anything crazy. But in fact it,the X-rated books magazines and scantly clad women, get Larry even more turned on towards Norah whom he thinks, after the incident at the gym, is hot for him!Shocking and extremely sexually explicit for its time the film "Who Killed Teddy Bear" and its star Sal Mineo are some ten years ahead of the equally shocking psychological thriller "Taxi Driver" with Robert De Niro playing the crazed and sex obsessed cab driver Travis Bickle! A part very similar to Mineo's Larry Sherman!In fact Sal Mineo is far more believable then De Niro in that the film doesn't clean up his acts of violence and depravity like the movie "Taxi Driver" did with Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle! In making him a hero at the conclusion of the film! Even though Robert De Niro/Travis Bickel slaughtered a pimp and John in order to rescue the woman he was obsessed with: The 14 year-old hooker Iris. This action in his mind and in the minds of those who made the movie supposedly proved to the audience that the mentally unstable and criminally driven Bickle was actually fit to live in a civilized society!***SPOILERS*** The films ending has Larry really lose it as Norah, not realizing that he's the person who's been unmercifully harassing her on the phone, invites him to dance with her at the now deserted disco. Larry's insecurities, in feeling that he's not up to it, take over as he viciously attacks and rapes the unsuspecting and terrified Norah. Let. Madden who had his suspicions about Larry's, whom he met with Edi in Central Park, mental state soon realizes, by checking Larry's apartment, that he's making the obscene calls and rushes down to the disco where both Larry and Norah are!Not all that surprise of an ending with Larry paying for his crimes which includes the murder of his and Noarh's boss at the disco lesbian Elaine Stritch, Marian Freeman, who had earlier made an unwanted pass at a totally turned off Noarh. It turned out that Larry's ultimated fate was for him to end up in a place that he's very familiar and at home with: The sleazy and red light Times Square District of New York City.

Hard to believe and very sad to realize that we are coming close to the 30th anniversary of the death, in February-1976,of the brilliant, beautiful, enigmatic, and influential talent of Sal Mineo. He was one of the original 50's heartthrobs who debuted with his poetic performance in the now legendary James Dean classic, Rebel Without a Cause. Later, Mineo became known for his talent and his courage in his art and in his life. He would tackle much more difficult roles and become the first actor to declare his homosexuality, unapologetically. Teddy Bear is Mineo at his most brilliant, most haunting, most daring and most heartbreaking. Coming at a time in his career when he was frustrated with very little roles to choose from, came this harrowing film from director Joseph Cates. It is important to note, and upsetting to say that Teddy Bear is mostly regarded as a "cult classic" and sometimes viewed as a late night schlock/camp film. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is a film that was not only ahead of its time in subject matter, as well as actors pushing the envelope, but also influencing Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver(1976) and Alan J. Pakula's Klute (1971).First, it is important to note how much "Teddy Bear" resembles the great Italian films from the late '50's, early'60's. Another great feat for Joseph Cates, is showing the remarkable influence from Michaelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse. This is another film dealing with the issues of disillusionment with life and society. Antonioni films Italy as though the surroundings of the characters are being consumed by their environment, a constant theme in Cates' Teddy Bear. Even more remarkable, one can see similarities between Monica Vitti in L'Eclisse and Sal Mineo in Teddy Bear. Both actors never indicating, but truly feeling the confusion, the sadness, and despair with their lives and what they have amounted to. Cates is the one director who beat all others to the punch before imitation of Italian cinema in America became the norm. Joseph Cates dared to show New York as it sadly sometimes can be, a dark, hedonistic, and self absorbed web of sex, self satisfaction and ultimately personal confusion turning to crisis. And he found the perfect actor to personify this as well in the form of the lead character. Mineo never compromises from film's beginning to end. It is a performance of the kind James Dean would have probably played had he lived. And Mineo plays it with all of the same courage, energy and longing that James Dean himself did in Kazan's East of Eden. Alas, Mineo himself had surpassed Dean in some ways with this performance and still, it is ignored. By watching Mineo in this performance, one sees the influence for Robert De Niro's historic Travis Bickle character. A decade earlier Mineo created a character who becomes a victim of an uncaring society, sexual disfunciton and a New York spiraling into hell. Mineo's character certainly would have made movie legend, like DeNiro had done with Driver, if Teddy Bear had been accepted by theatergoers in the first place. Joseph Cates' brilliant directing is overlooked as well. One is reminded of Scorsece's Taxi Driver throughout. The parallels are very easy to see. Cates had made the first movie to address some very upsetting and complicated issues that apparently no one wanted to see on the screen in 1965. Cates treats each character it seems as though they have lost all sensiblility in some cases and are detached from any kind of emotion. Sadly, when each character comes close to any kind of connection, they become even more bitter or face a confusion they can't comprehend or would even want to. Cates also did a brilliant job in creating the other characters through through the other actors in the film. Juliet Prowse as a jaded but still hopeful actress who desperately seeks independence. Jan Murrey as a soul sick cop. And last but not least, the stunning,incandescent Elaine Stritch who steals every scene that she's in and showing a vulnerability and human frailty that would still surprise people in 2006. Teddy Bear has yet to be available on DVD in wide release. It is the last in a series of insults to Cates' vision and Sal Mineo's heartbreaking talent. How soon we forget and overlook an actor of such talent, grace and beauty as Sal Mineo. After seeing his shattering performance in Who Killed Teddy Bear he will be even more greatly missed.

Every now and again, a movie washes up on the fringes of the industry that's unlike anything else of its time – or any time. Who Killed Teddy Bear (no question mark) certainly qualifies; rarely discussed or even mentioned, it's not quite forgotten, either – it's hard to forget.By 1965, the barriers were starting to be breached in what could be shown, or even implied, on the screen (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf dates from that year). But Who Killed Teddy Bear rubs, brusquely and suggestively, against just about every taboo obtaining then or now. It's a New York story, but of the grotty 1960s, when Manhattan led the nation as an example of how American cities were surrendering to crime and vice and ugliness at the core.Spinning platters in a seedy discotheque, Juliet Prowse starts getting obscene phone calls then finds a decapitated teddy bear in her apartment. Police detective Jan Murray takes the case, which holds an obsessive interest for him. Four years earlier his wife had been raped and murdered; now the world of perversion and fetishism has become his life, both professionally and privately (despite a young daughter, who listens to him listening to his lurid tapes from her bedroom). Prowse becomes so shaken by the stalking that she can't quite trust him, or for that matter her tough-as-nails boss Elaine Stritch, who, invited home to serve as protection, makes a pass at her. Shown the door, Stritch, in a slip and fur coat, wanders the dark streets and back alleys, where....Top billing goes to Sal Mineo, 10 years after his debut as Plato in Rebel Without A Cause, as a waiter in the club. Back home he has a child-like grown sister, whom he locks in the closet when he's making the rounds of the porn shops and peep shows near Times Square. Though his character isn't gay, he's served up like prime, pre-Stonewall beefcake, halfway between raw and blue; towards the end, when Prowse teaches him to dance, he erupts like a go-go boy.The movie bears all the marks of a starvation budget, but for once the saturated photography and jumpy cutting seem just right. The odd but savvy cast – even the young Daniel J. `Travanty' makes his debut as a deaf-mute bouncer – brings from Broadway and east-coast television a rough edge that's far from Hollywood's buffed and smooth product. But it's the vision of the TV-reared director, Joseph Cates, and writers Arnold Drake and Leon Tokatyan that makes Who Killed Teddy Bear so hard to shake. Neither a tidy thriller nor a nuanced character study, it nonetheless has a trump card to play: It's the real McCoy,a genuine creepshow.

Very much ahead of its time - this cult film vanished almost without trace after it was released, and it's very hard to find copies of it nowadays. So I consider myself fortunate to have been exposed to this sleaze-ball of a movie.The highlight for me was in one of the final scenes where Sal Mineo and Juliet Prowse shimmy to one of the sassiest, silliest 60s dance tunes ever invented. Sal's wearing a little cut-off shirt and as he freaks out, more and more of his midriff is exposed. Sal's a long way from Rebel Without A Cause here, and looking all the better for it. This scene is worth the entrance fee alone. The title sequence is also hilariously evocative.Full of weird characters, almost EVERYONE in this movie has a dirty little dark side waiting to be shown.