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.

According to a recent biography of Sal Mineo he was going through a lot of professional and personal angst at the time he was making Who Killed Teddy Bear. Professional because he was no longer the teen idol of the Fifties and roles were getting scarce. He was in the early Sixties discovering the fact he was indeed gay. Maybe the role of the sexually confused busboy might do something or maybe it was the best he could get.

Whatever it was Teddy Bear might have been the low point of his career and a few others in the cast. No one comes out of this with any glory.

Juliet Prowse is a disc jockey at a disco and of course she takes her turn on the floor as well. She's picked up a stalker and when she turns to the police for help she gets a cop with issues.

That would be Jan Murray, late of the borscht belt and of the television game show Treasure Hunt which I first remember seeing him in. His wife was brutally killed in a sex crime homicide and he now quite obsesses on the subject of sexual predators. He's also feeling a little lustful towards Juliet.

And he's not the only one. The owner of disco Elaine Stritch would like to make a little time with her. Normally I might applaud the fact that lesbianism even got a hint on the screen, but in such a crass and a exploitive film as Who Killed Teddy Bear.

It's one weird film, shot totally on location in New York with what looks like someone's Bell&Howell home movie camera. Production values are near zero.

Skip this trash by.

I heard a lot of good things about this one but wasn't overly impressed. I do like a lot of the psycho-thrillers from this era but this one is far too padded with endless back and forth dialogue and day to day stuff with the imperilled heroine. Sal Mineo is good value of course as the mixed-up young man at the centre of it all and the sexual aspect of the film makes it ahead of its time, but the low budget is all too obvious throughout and, for me, this just goes nowhere.