What’s New In Old Movies: May 2025

by Don Stradley

A “terror film about a sex deviate” was how the Los Angeles Times described it back in December of 1965. That’s about the best anyone has ever done with Who Killed Teddy Bear?, a sleazy thriller starring Sal Mineo and Juliet Prowse. Critics and film buffs have spent 60 years slapping labels on the movie, but it just about defies categorization. One can’t even say with certainty that the movie is good or bad. It’s just odd, like a melody heard on an untuned instrument. The storyline is complex, though the quick description would be that Prowse plays a disc-jockey at a Manhattan go-go club being stalked by a pervert. There’s an unpleasant character at every turn, and any of them could be Prowse’s antagonist. 

Years removed from his heyday as a teen heartthrob, Mineo plays a busboy with some strange ideas about women. Though he seems meek, we see the shabby apartment he shares with his mentally troubled sister, and the way he seems drawn to the 42nd Street porno shops, and we suspect he’s hiding something dark in his psyche. Mineo had hoped the film would change the perception of him as a doe-eyed teen, but the effect it had on his career was not what he’d wanted. As Mineo put it, “I found myself on the weirdo list.”  

The film is loaded with unsavory types. The atmosphere is salacious and relentless, as if the seedy Times Square milieu is so overbearing that citizens can only succumb to it. At the time, some praised the film for its frank look at what seemed to be a nationwide explosion of erotic strangeness, what one critic called “the whole sordid catalogue of creeping sexual sicknesses.” Critics also singled out Elaine Stritch for her turn as the club owner, a closeted lesbian with her own interest in Prowse. Jan Murray, who was better known as a comedian, earned kudos as the detective who tries to help Prowse but is undone by his own instabilities.

Directed by Joseph Cates with exceptional black and white cinematography by Joseph C. Brun, the film feels strangely intimate. The sordid milieu of nudie theaters and adult bookshops creates, as Times critic Margaret Harford called it, “a grim commentary on what has happened to the area.” Indeed, the film’s location filming gives it the realistic feel of cinéma vérité. One can almost enjoy Who Killed Teddy Bear? just as a window into post-Kennedy era New York. According to legend, much of the film was made on the sly, with Mineo running along the city streets without anyone knowing a film was being shot. During one scene a concerned citizen thought Mineo was a purse snatcher and tackled him.

Despite some critics who appreciated the film, much of the public agreed with the New York Daily News’ assessment that Who Killed Teddy Bear? was “low-grade melodrama…a sick movie about sick people.” The film’s prurient atmosphere kept it out of the mainstream and led to it becoming a cult item, of interest only to those who fetishized Sal Mineo, or those longing for the days of kinky Times Square.  

The new two-disc set from Cinematographe includes audio commentary by film historians Elizabeth Purchell and KJ Shepherd; “The Murder of Innocence,” a video essay by Chris O'Neill; “Who Filmed Times Square,” a featurette on the New York City locations of Who Killed Teddy Bear? and a gallery of archival press clippings. (Available April 29)

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Those who appreciate a more traditional suspense tale will welcome a new Sony Pictures Blu-ray of Experiment in Terror (1962). Lee Remick stars as a young bank employee being extorted by a mysterious man to rob her workplace of $100,000. He warns that if she doesn’t follow his exact instructions, she and her younger sister (Stefanie Powers) will die. From the opening scene, where the brute accosts Remick in her garage, we know he’s not to be taken lightly. He’s tried this scheme before and has left a few dead bodies behind.

With Blake Edwards directing and a musical score by Henry Mancini, this is the sort of high-gloss entertainment that Hollywood could still churn out just as the old studio system was beginning to fray. There’s a lot to like here, especially the bright, flashlight-in-your-eyes cinematography by Philip H. Lathrop, a veteran who earned his stripes working with Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock. Lathrop and Edwards take a routine crime thriller and turn it into something exquisite, with a lot of perspiring closeups, wide screen shots, and oddball angles that make the film feel surprisingly lush and cinematic. There’s also the foggy San Francisco backdrop, and the always reliable Glenn Ford as the untiring FBI agent who solves the case. Ross Martin is a good heel, rasping and wheezing all the way with a sort of bug-eyed malevolence. 

Newsday called Experiment in Terror a “minor classic,” with special praise for the film’s “pulsating climax,” which involves Ford tracking the villain to Candlestick Park during a baseball game, all of which is “achieved in the best blood-curdling tradition.” (123 mins, available June 24)

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Released at approximately the same time as Who Killed Teddy Bear? Russ Meyer’s Motorpsycho (1965) endured some acid reviews. “The cast is unknown and likely to stay that way,” wrote one critic, while another described the film as “an off-Hollywood abomination.” Meyer’s scant budget and glib approach seemed to be the main issue among the film’s detractors. As The Commercial Appeal of Memphis wrote, “What he offers is several exploitable scenes of brawling, shrieking, and tearing of clothes, a background of rock and roll music and a story that doesn’t make much sense.” 

Of course, that sounds good to some of us, though Meyer is an acquired taste. 

Billed on posters as “The most adult film you will ever see,” Motorpsycho depicts the simple-minded exploits of a biker gang as they rape and pillage their way across a barren American landscape. That is, until the local veterinarian (Alex Rocco) and one of the gang’s victims (Haji) start plotting revenge. For a change, Meyer decreased the nudity of his earlier films and increased the violence. There was also an improvement regarding cinematography, the ominous dark skies framing each ridiculous scene, as if the dumb brutality being showcased was as real as an impending storm. The result was another chapter in Meyer’s sex and violence period, the grim years from 1964 to 1966 that some hail as his gutsy, freewheeling prime.

Motorpsycho may not be Meyer’s best, but it does serve as a sort of bridge between his earlier Lorna (1964) and his high watermark, Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966). And in its day, it was a hit on the drive-in circuit, usually paired with something involving crazy teens, naked women, or fast cars. Later it would be paired with Pussycat, which must’ve been a shock to the system for those kids in the American heartland who were out for a simple Friday night double feature, only to be hit between the eyes by a twin-dose of Meyer mania. 

The new 4K Blu-ray package from Severin Films (a two-disc set released in cooperation with the Meyer Charitable Trust) includes more yak-yak from film historians, a trailer, and a nifty short film called “Desert Rats on Hondas,” which features interviews with the film’s two stars, Alex Rocco and the inimitable Haji. Rocco, of course, went on to have a solid film career (so much for the cast of unknowns who wouldn’t amount to anything) and Haji would later be in Faster Pussycat, cementing her as a cult figure in the Meyer universe. The package is a bit pricy, but that’s always been the case with Meyer’s movies on disc. (Available April 29) 

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And finally, VCI Home Entertainment is releasing a Blu-ray of The Naked Witch (1969). A film that has been known by four or five different names over the years (aka The Witchmaker), it involves a professor of paranormal studies leading a group of students into a Louisiana bog to investigate a series of murders. One of his students happens to be descended from witches, so things get intense. 

The cast includes Alvy Moore (from Green Acres), Sue Bernard (who appeared in several 1960s trash classics, including Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!), and a bevy of young blonde females who are onscreen just long enough to be sacrificed by a bayou sorcerer. Panned by the San Francisco Examiner for its “utter lack of taste or style,” the film became a steady drive-in companion to other, better films, usually around Halloween time. (Available May 13)