WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR, New 35mm Print of Unseen Director's Cut | August 8-14 at Film Forum

“A skewed and savage portrait chronicling the

perverse underside of a swinging 60s subculture.”

– George Hatch, Scarlet Street Magazine

JOSEPH CATES’

WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR

STARRING SAL MINEO, ELAINE STRITCH, JULIET PROWSE

NEW 35mm PRINT OF NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN DIRECTOR’S CUT

AUGUST 8-14 (ONE WEEK) AT FILM FORUM

The never-before-seen director’s cut of Joseph Cates' sleazy cult classic WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR (1965), will run at Film Forum in a new 35mm print from Friday, August 8 through Thursday, August 14.

The apex of lurid '60s exploitation movies and a virtual smorgasbord of Hollywood taboos: voyeurism, cross-dressing, pornography, masturbation, incest, child abuse, lesbianism, sexual violence, even necrophilia… In sharp contrast to his innocent but equally disturbed Plato in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, Sal Mineo stars as a porno-obsessed, body-building proto-Travis Bickle, with Juliet Prowse as a Go-Go dancer/hostess whose seemingly inevitable states of undress are spied on by an unknown Peeping Tom. After one too many X-rated phone calls, it's erstwhile comedian/game show host Jan Murray on the case, as a sex-crime-specializing cop whose research includes re-playing victims’ interviews, while his 10-year-old daughter listens in next door; plus all-too-friendly sympathy from lesbian disco boss Elaine Stritch.

TEDDY BEAR seethes with a sweatily frustrated libidinousness: as the camera caressingly photographs the faceless voyeur in his jockey shorts, you'd swear you were watching a recent Calvin Klein commercial. Shot on location in New York in a glistening black and white recalling SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, TEDDY BEAR offers a unique documentary record of mid-'60s Times Square sex shops, when magazines like Teenage Nudist were displayed alongside books by Frank Harris and William Burroughs.

This new 35mm print of Cates’ original director’s cut, unseen in nearly 60 years, includes over 5 minutes of censored material (cut from the 1965 release prints), revealing, among other things, a deeper exploration of the Mineo character’s true sexuality.

Says filmmaker and actor Owen Kline (FUNNY PAGES), grandson of director Joseph Cates, “of all the lurid discoveries hiding in the lost director's cut, the most staggering was a moment of Mineo sifting through nudist magazines in a Times Square adult bookstore. The last title he picks up is a gay pulp novel called Beach Stud. Mineo was already running from gay rumors in the tabloids when he fearlessly took on the character in TEDDY BEAR (it officially put him on the “weirdo list,” as he put it), but to us, restoring this lost detail cements the film's already-beloved status as a touchstone of Queer Cinema."

“Every frame is imbued with a glorious sleazy quality that rendered it impossible to cut. Forty years later it can still shock, more for its ahead-of-the-curve qualities.”– Phelim O'Neill, The Guardian

“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… 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, Brooklyn Magazine

Directed by Joseph CatesWritten by Leon Tokatyan, Arnold DrakeEditor: Angelo RossCinematography: Joseph C. BrunWith Sal Mineo, Juliet Prowse, Elaine Stritch, Jan MurrayU.S. | 1965 | Approx. 94 min. | 35mm

NEW 35mm PRINT COURTESY OWEN KLINE AND VINEGAR SYNDROMEA DREAM WALKING PICTURES RELEASEIN ASSOCIATION WITH VINEGAR SYNDROME

Film description by Bruce Goldstein and Michael Jeck