Monday, December 23, 2013

The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959)

Man on bicycle looks at breasts. Roll credits.

Russ Meyer has long fascinated me. Undoubtedly the biggest name in the 60's "nudie cutie" genre, his movies are legendary and annoyingly hard to come by. Netflix? Never heard of him. Amazon Prime has nothing for free. And forget about your local library. YouTube to the rescue, believe it or not. That can't be legal.

Anyhow Mr. Teas (actual name!) sells dentist stuff door to door and along the way is greeted by unusually well endowed women showing unusual amounts of cleavage. The dental hygienist, his office secretary, the counter woman at the diner, some chick at the beach. And he concludes there must be something wrong with him because, and here's the sick part, he LIKES it! He even starts fantasizing about the women! Clearly he needs serious therapy.

A few odd things about this movie. First, there is no actual dialog. The movie is done in voice over narration (frequently a bit of trivia about a non-fleshy element on screen) with an insipid soundtrack. Secondly, with one exception, nobody appears to notice or care that Mr. Teas is snooping on the ladies. Also, there is no inference of sex. Well, except once and that turns into a comedic moment. There are just breasts for our man to look at. And the on-screen talent is quite impressive.

Surprisingly, this, Meyer's first, is a well photographed movie. The ladies are well lit, the editing crisp, good pacing, and the overall craft well done. Citizen Kane this is not, but take it for what it is: Cheesecake pornography. Remove the fleshy elements and you don't just have less of a film, you basically don't have a film. That said, AMRU 3.

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