Kitten with a Whip

Ann Margaret on acid - IF she would have taken acid. She is gorgeous, sexy and psycho. Her character is beyond bipolar. Her mood swings every ten seconds. The 1960s lingo is priceless. This movie is a joy to watch.

source: Kitten with a Whip

Ann Margaret and John Forsythe star in this turgid little sleazefest about an incredibly naive and trusting candidate for the Senate who becomes embroiled with hot little teenage psychopath, Ann. Ann is at the height of her sex appeal here and a little more flesh in some of the ensuing scenes wouldn't have hurt this flick's watchability. In the end it all gets to be a little too much to take. Forsythe's character is so unbelievably stupid that he gets irritating really quick. On top of that his acting in this flick seems to be mostly comprised of not reacting to the inanity that's unfolding all around him. This leaves Mz. Margaret free to just chew up the scenery with a way-over-the-top performance as the twisted title character. The end results are a lot like the first "Batman" movie which featured Michael Keaton's deadpan Bruce Wayne against Jack Nicholson's hammy-to-the-tenth-power rendition of The Joker. It really didn't work too well there either. You end up wishing somebody would resucitate Forsythe and slip Ann a sedative in a good strong martini. The plot goes from promising to just plain unbelievable in about 80 minutes and by that time it's piled coincidence upon coincidence so unconvincingly that you're glad to just see the whole thing end. A lurid little pot boiler with a contrived happy ending, watch it for giggles, like i did.

Ann-Margret in movie with oddly kinky title that has nothing to do with the story or plot of the film. Ann-Margret plays juvenile delinquent escapee of reform school for girls (sound familiar?) and ends up in senator-to-be John Forsythe's house and all hell breaks loose. Ann-Margret (as girl named Jody) utters such classic lines as "That's the Jody doll, you wind her up and she still turns up lousy!" Trash camp fun!

Having just seen this film for the second time in some years I felt I needed to come to its defense in view of the poor ratings it has received on IMDb. Moreover I can't help but compare it to "Rebel Without a Cause" which I also recently saw again. Released nine years apart they both deal with the same subject, disaffected youth. They also both reflect their times. Whereas "Rebel" dances around young angst, "Kitten" is more honest about it, although nowhere near as raw as it would have been done today. In "Rebel" the kids are troubled but still seek comfort from their parents, in "Kitten" they're nihilistic, rebellious, disdainful of their parents' values. "Kitten" is edgy, mean, gritty. Its poverty-row production probably helped in that respect. The limited sets added to the sense of claustrophobia, the fear of exposing a dangerous secret in the open. And the references to the finality of the atom bomb add to the general sense of despair. I found the acting competent if not outstanding. All protagonists had their highs and lows and overall they acquitted themselves rather well, even John Forsythe who does tend to be one-dimensional. I even think that may have worked in his favor playing a conflicted middle-aged man whose estranged wife is away, suddenly being confronted with a sexually charged dynamo. It seems such a man would be on the introverted side. And his suspicious attitude hinted at something sinister. After all, if he had nothing to hide, wouldn't he have reached out for help? He had plenty of opportunities but wasted them all, to the very end, when Ann-Margret walks back to the car and takes away his car keys. One final note: Audrey Dalton had the most thankless part. She had not even one single line, no screen time at all. We only get to see her in a photo soon to be vandalized. And when Forsythe goes to buy size seven clothes for Ann-Margret we are told that Dalton's character would never fit in them. That's rather unkind because I think she's actually smaller than Ann-Margret. So to top it all off she has to suffer the indignity of being called fat, or at least big, and she doesn't get the chance to show us otherwise. Then again maybe that's just it, she doesn't have any screen time because the whole clothes scene wouldn't fit in.

This film was rather funny...to watch a politician help a person then proceed to pay for it through the whole movie really makes one wonder what message this film was trying to send? Is it trying to say, one should never show kindness, because in return you will end up a hostage in your own home to political science majors and their friends with cars and anger management issues. Still, the film had some moments, mainly the unintentionally funny moments and you get to see a very attractive young Ann Margaret. The film is about a bland politician who ends up finding a very attractive girl in his daughter's bed. His wife and child are away at the time. The girl begs the man for help and he listens to her story and proceeds to buy the young lady and outfit, takes her to the bus stop and gives her some money to help her out. He later finds out that she has escaped from a juvenile facility and even stabbed one of the employees there. Well he returns home to find out that she has returned and he also finds out that she is kind of insane! She ends up making his life miserable, she invites friends that are a bit psycho themselves and he continually believes what she says and defends her at every turn. The film was featured on MST3K and it made for a very funny episode. It helps that this film was not all that bad, as it contained plenty of fodder for Mike and the bots. It was also kind of good in a way, which always makes for the more entertaining episodes. Listening to their riffs as the politician keeps getting deeper and deeper into trouble was funny, but at the same time you kept wondering how it was going to end as well. Could he possibly get out of this situation unscathed? So while it was not an award winning movie by an means, it was entertaining in its own way. And Ann Margaret was hot, hot, HOT...back then.

Ann-Margret gets her first dramatic role, that of a delinquent sociopath named Jody who's all out for KICKS! The part stuck her with a 'bad girl' rep for a number of years, but the good news is A-M seems to relish this change of pace and gives an exceptionally strong performance. Unfortunately, the general handling of "Kitten With a Whip" is far too broad and quasi-colorful, and the film fails as a message picture, though its stale J-D clichés and overwrought dialogue ("You're so nothing painted blue!", "Where the hell is T-town?!") turns it into a dizzying dark comedy. John Forsythe plays a weakling politician who gets mixed up with the girl and her creepy post-teenage buddies, and the plot-developments become increasingly far-fetched. Still, the black-and-white cinematography is excellent, Ann-Margret is electric, and the pacing seldom flags. *** from ****

Look, I know what the guidelines say, but when someone comes in trashing MST3K, I just gotta react. After all, even the most hardcore MST3K fans will tell you that this was kind of a sub-par episode, recommended for regular viewers only, and if someone's going to use this episode as a yardstick for the whole series, well, we can't have that, won't we? OK, maybe it had kind of an intriguing plot, but the movie could have been over with in about half an hour if not for the leaden pacing and relentless subplots. And if we're going to talk 'witless and worthless,' then look no farther than the acting in this film. The wooden performance of John Forsythe; the shrill, pointy overacting of Ann-Margret; the irritating, repetitive pseudo-funny philosophical observations of Ron (which became like Chinese water torture after awhile); the unappealing, unacting Midge; the lunkheaded, fiercely underacted Peter Graves look-alike Buck; I'm sorry, what's "witless and worthless?" And it doesn't end there. Someone explain to me how a woman notices from across the room a light lit up on a phone and then comes to the conclusion that there's someone else in the house! (Mike: "David, there's some DNA samples and carpet fibres under your fingernails!") Also, why does a man who's faced a couple days of moral and psychological hell stay back at a motel to comfort his captor (let alone accept a kiss from her)? And where did Ron and Buck get the other car? And what was the significance of the final shot of the wedding ring? And what was the one thing? And what about Scarecrow's brain? Bottom line: Douglas Heyes was good on the Twilight Zone because it was a half-hour long; a 90-minute film needs more action and more plot development than a show one-third the length can possible encompass. "I hate to mention this, but... I'm dyin' in a rush!" 4/10.

Jody (Ann-Margaret) is a teen on the run. She finds an empty house and decides to use it as a place to spend the night. After she's asleep, the house's owner, Senatorial candidate David Patton (John Forsythe), returns home and makes his way to his bed. The next morning, Patton finds Jody in his house and, after hearing her sob story, agrees to help the girl out by buying her some clothes and a bus ticket. But when Patton comes home that night, he finds Jody has returned with a whole different attitude. If Patton doesn't do as she demands, she'll yell "Rape!" How would it look if it were known that the future Senator spent the night in a house with a seventeen year-old runaway while his wife was out of town? Patton is caught between rock and a hard place. I actually watched Kitten with a Whip a week or more ago and I've been trying to write something about it ever since. I've found it a difficult movie for me to get a grip on. Admittedly, it's got its fair share of problems (actually it's got a whole bunch of problems) but it's so bizarre, so surreal, and, ultimately, so oddly compelling that I can't help but give it a good rating. It's not even the movie I was expecting. Kitten with a Whip isn't nearly as lurid as either the title, plot description, or tagline ("She's all out for kicks... and every inch of her spells excitement!") seem to suggest. Remember, this is 1964 and made by Universal – a relatively conservative time and a very conservative company. Yet the more I watched, the more I found myself being entertained in that trashy sort of way. The bluesy, smoky soundtrack was appealing. The overwrought melodrama grew on me. The ridiculous hipster dialogue started sounding less annoying. The plot's absence of logic began to matter less and less. And most surprising, I discovered that I actually began to care about the characters played by Ann-Margaret and John Forsythe. In the end, regardless of all its shortcomings, Kitten with a Whip is one entertaining experience. I actually have Mystery Science Theater 3000 to thank for bringing this movie to my attention. And though I enjoyed the movie, I found that the MST3K commentary actually took away from the experience. I would like to see the movie without the comedy. So, while I rate Kitten with a Whip a 7/10, I'll give the Episode #615 a 2/5 on my MST3K rating scale.

A teenage girl flees through the night, obviously trying to escape someone. She breaks into an apparently deserted home looking for shelter, only for the owner--a politician whose family just so happens to be away for the weekend--to return in the morning. The man, David, takes pity on the girl (who calls herself Jody) after she tells him she was on the run from a rapist, and he gives her a new dress, money, and a ride to the bus station. The good Samaritan later discovers the truth about Jody--she's on the run from the police for setting fire to her detention center. He comes home only to find that Jody has returned, and is nastier and crazier than he could have imagined. Threatening to cry rape if David doesn't hide her and heed her demands, Jody invites her juvenile delinquent friends, the drunk Ron and the homicidal Buck, to David's pad for a party. Then things quickly spin out of control... KITTEN WITH A WHIP is an enjoyable piece of 60s cheese that is more fun and interesting than it has any right to be. Despite its strong beginning, however, the final act of the film feels rushed and contrived; for example, while in a sketchy part of Tijuana, David has to narrowly escape not only Buck and Ron, but also his socialite friends, who just happen to be on that Tijuana street that very night. Not likely. The film also suffers from what Roger Ebert would call "idiot moments", as later plot developments depend on David trusting Jody and letting her get close to him when any other sane person would abandon the little psycho at the clearest available chance. On the plus side, the titular "kitten" Ann Margaret gives a solid performance as the disturbed Jody, acting like an innocent damsel in distress in one scene and literally unleashing her claws on anyone who provokes her in the next. Sometimes she very nearly crosses the line into overacting, but still manages to be convincing in her role. The stoic John Forscythe is an excellent foil for the unpredictable anti-heroine, though his character's lapses in good judgment will make the audience groan. KITTEN WITH A WHIP was featured on MST3K, the show renowned for making fun of b-movies. As amusing as that episode was, KITTEN WITH A WHIP stands out as one of the most competent and watchable movies aired on the program, enjoyable in its own right.