WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR? opened 60 years ago, apparently without New York reviews to herald its materialization amid the skin flicks and triple-bills of un-Disneyfied 42nd Street — which is to say its natural habitat. Although periodically revived, most recently in New York by Anthology Film Archives in 2010, it has never quite attracted a cult audience. Now restored and refurbished in 4K… TEDDY BEAR returns to claim that status. —J. Hoberman, The New York Times

Norah Drain (Juliet Prowse), a Manhattan disco hostess, finds herself the victim of a stalker and obscene phone caller. NYPD Lieutenant Dave Madden (Jan Murray) overhears her complaints at the precinct and takes a personal interest in Drain’s case, finding himself drawn not only to Drain but the sordid desires of the Times Square sex district. As Drain begins to question the intentions of Madden, a sullen busboy at her workplace (Academy Award-nominee Sal Mineo) reveals himself as her stalker, putting her in a fight for her life on the streets of New York City.

Directed by noted television and Broadway producer Joseph Cates and co-written by Arnold Drake, WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR? is a lurid time capsule of mid-1960s Times Square, evocatively shot on location, in stark black and white, by Joseph C. Brun. Peerlessly ahead of its time for 1965, Gartenberg Media Enterprises is proud to distribute Joseph Cates’ seminal New York City thriller in its completely uncensored form, produced in 4K by Cinématographe, which reconstitutes several minutes of never-on-video footage, newly restored from original 35mm negative materials.

WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR? is a fascinating precursor to the dissolution of the Hays Code and the rise of New Hollywood. Released in 1965 — just two years before Arthur Penn’s BONNIE AND CLYDE (often denoted as the “beginning” of the countercultural Hollywood Renaissance) — TEDDY BEAR was groundbreaking for its depiction of such taboo subject matters as incest, homosexuality, voyeurism, and pornography, years before such topics would be deemed “acceptable” content for movies.

To understand the significance of TEDDY BEAR’s content, one must understand the cultural context of its making. The mid-1960s through the early 1970s were a pivotal chapter in American society, one characterized by widespread socio-cultural revolution — and dysfunction — which was reified in contemporary cinematic trends. As noted by eminent film critic Robin Wood in his book HOLLYWOOD: FROM VIETNAM TO REAGAN… AND BEYOND:

Although Classical Hollywood had already been dealt a series of death-blows, it might have taken a much longer time dying had it not been for the major eruptions in American culture from the mid-60s and into the ‘70s: overwhelmingly, of course, Vietnam, but subsequently Watergate, and part counterpoint, part consequence, the growing force and cogency of radical protest and liberation movements—black militancy, feminism, gay liberation… The obvious monstrousness of the [Vietnam] war definitively undermined the credibility of “the system”… the questioning of authority spread logically to a questioning of the entire social structure that validated it… yet this generalized crisis in ideological confidence never issued in revolution. No coherent social [or] economic program emerged… Society appeared to be in a state of advanced disintegration, yet there was no serious possibility of the emergence of a coherent and comprehensive alternative. This quandary can be felt to underlie most of the important American films of the late ‘60s and ‘70s… accounting for their richness, their confusion, and their ultimate nihilism… The[se] films seem to crack open before our eyes.

JULIET PROWSE IN *WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?*.

While Cates’ film consists of an Old Hollywood cast (Mineo, Prowse, Broadway vet and occasional film actress Elaine Stritch), its content is far bleaker and more controversial than what would have typically appeared in a feature film produced under the studio system, thereby reflecting the fatalism and incoherence of the times and forecasting the gritty (at times tawdry) realism of the forthcoming New Hollywood era. It may come as no surprise, then, that when WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR? was first theatrically released in the United States, nearly five minutes of Cates’ footage was censored. As noted by Cates’ grandson, the filmmaker Owen Kline:

Of all the lurid discoveries hiding in the lost director's cut [of WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?], the most staggering was a moment of [Sal] Mineo sifting through nudist magazines in a Times Square adult book store. 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.

Long before major movie studios plumbed the depths of queer identity, sexual depravity, urban disorder, and crime in such big-budget productions as MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969), KLUTE (1971), DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975), and LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (1978), Cates fearlessly tackled these subject matters — independently, and on a shoestring budget — in WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?. Writing for the New York Times, critic J. Hoberman even characterizes TEDDY BEAR as an “ur TAXI DRIVER,” noting its stylistic and thematic similarities to Martin Scorsese’s violent and critically-acclaimed 1975 psychological thriller, which has since become one of the most identifiable works of the New Hollywood era.

ELAINE STRITCH (CENTER) AND JAN MURRAY (FAR RIGHT) IN *WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?*.

Film Forum premiered Cinématographe’s new 4K restoration of WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR? in New York City in August 2025. Their program note highlighted both the prescience and historical significance of the film’s content:

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.

The 4K restoration of WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR? is accompanied by a supplemental booklet, featuring archival press clippings and new essays by film historian John Charles and film critic Kyle Turner.

About Cinématographe

Taking its name from the Lumière Brothers invention of the same name, Cinématographe is a new sub-label from Vinegar Syndrome that seeks to fill gaps in the canon of American cinema. Offering a mix of auteur driven studio films produced during the New Hollywood era of the late 1960s and ‘70s, all the way through the indie boom of the 1980s and ‘90s, Cinématographe will explore the wide breadth of American moviemaking, spanning numerous genres and scales of production.

GME Streamline Blog

WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR? (United States, 1965, Joseph Cates)

About Cinématographe

WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?
(United States, 1965)

GME Streamline Blog

About Cinématographe

WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?(United States, 1965)

WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?
(United States, 1965)