THE IMMORAL MR. TEAS

The only sound in the film is the voice of a narrator and a very monotonic musical theme.

Mr. Teas is a door-to-door salesman for dentist appliances who makes deliveries on his bicycle. Teas is a clumsy and shy man, who likes to watch happy couples, and who daydreams when looking down the necklines of women he meets. The only way that he is able to have sex is with a prostitute. After undergoing surgery at the dentist, Teas realizes that the anesthetic has overcome his inhibitions, and given him x-ray vision, enabling him to see all women without their clothes. He is happy at first, but gradually begins to be embarrassed. For example, he goes to the river, and sees three women swimming, and he sees them as naked. The three women are those he sees daily: the dental nurse, a secretary, and a waitress in the bar. Teas decides to go to a psychoanalyst, and he also sees her naked. The voiceover says: "On the other hand, some men are happy to be sick."

Mr. Teas, embarrassed by his visions, seeks help from a psychoanalyst, but even she appears naked to him. The narrator concludes that some men are content to remain 'sick.'

The ending cheekily suggests that Mr. Teas’s predicament is both inescapable and, perhaps, not entirely unwelcome. The film closes with a sly wink, leaving the audience to ponder whether Teas’s so-called malady is a curse or simply an amusing escape from conformity—true to the film’s playful, subversive spirit.