The Immoral Mr. Teas
The Immoral Mr. Teas is a 1959 film from the USA, directed by Russ Meyer, running 63 minutes. reelscum files it under classical exploitation and roughie.
- Year
- 1959 · 1950s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 63 min
- Director
- Russ Meyer
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (41/100)
- Also known as
- Steam Heat · Mr. Teas and His Playthings
Defined in the glossary: Classical exploitation, Roughie
Historically pivotal, formally inert. Watch ten minutes and read about the rest.
Russ Meyer's first film, and the one that effectively invented the nudie-cutie and cracked open American screen nudity. A delivery man gains the ability to see women naked, and the film is a plotless, sun-drenched string of pin-up tableaux with comic narration. By modern standards it is quaint to the point of inertia.
Its importance is entirely historical: it made real money, survived obscenity challenges, and proved there was a legal, profitable market for nudity, which set the whole sexploitation industry in motion. Watch a few minutes and read about the rest.
Pivotal, and close to unwatchable as entertainment now.
The numbers
Nobody has rated this yet. Be the first to make a claim you'll have to defend.
Your call
Where to watch
No legal stream, rental or purchase that we could find in the usual regions. For films this obscure that is common, and availability changes, so it is worth checking again later.
Discuss with AI
Open a chatbot with a question about this film already typed out. Useful for a second opinion, plot detail, or where to find a copy.
The cycle in depth
- The grindhouse and where the word came from
What a grindhouse is: a continuous-performance theatre, the 1925 trade term behind the word, and how the programming got its reputation.
- The B movie and the double bill it was made for
A B movie is what an exhibitor took to get the A picture, a flat-rate second feature, and the 1948 Paramount ruling ended the arrangement.
Filed alongside
Scum of the Earth
Herschell Gordon Lewis invents the roughie the same year he invents gore. Busy man.
The House on the Edge of the Park
Deodato points Last House at a dinner party. Grubby, mean, effective.
Marihuana
Esper again. One reefer leads directly to nude swimming and death.
Mom and Dad
Kroger Babb toured it for twenty years with a fake nurse in the lobby.
Supervixens
Meyer's biggest hit of the decade, and his cartoon violence at its most cartoonish.
Vixen!
The one that made the money and triggered the obscenity fight.
Blood Feast
The first gore film. Barely competent, historically unavoidable.
Lorna
Meyer stops joking. The one where the sun goes behind a cloud.
Maniac
Dwain Esper's roadshow lunacy. A man eats a cat's eye. Not the 1980 film.
The Curious Dr. Humpp
Argentine, insane, and re-cut by its US distributor into something stranger.
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Meyer and Roger Ebert, at a major studio, on drugs. Somehow released.
Reefer Madness
A church-funded warning that became a comedy 40 years later.