(1964/Universal Pictures) VHS
Rave Reviews
“Inept direction and ludicrous dialogue…. One of the most inane pieces of black-and-white screenfare to emerge from a major studio in a long, long time." —Nadine Edwards, Hollywood Citizen-News
“Misses because of a poor script and frequently inept acting."
—William Wolf, Cue magazine
“A trashy movie … about a fairly stupid man and a savvy little juvenile delinquent." —“Mae Tinee," Chicago American
Plot, What Plot? When Hollywood finally figured out that the customers at most of the nation’s drive-ins week after week were teenagers, a whole rash of teen-oriented films resulted. And few of them were as hilariously “hip" and hopelessly hokey as 1964’s Kitten with a Whip, starring “sex kitten" Ann-Margret as a juicy juvie on the run.
From the git-go, when we hear the first strains of the insistently sleazy theme music (and notice that the basic graphic gimmick of the film’s main title sequence is ripped off from Psycho), Kitten with a Whip runs roughshod over all logic and good taste. In fact, taken in toto, it would be perfectly described by using one of the favorite “hip" phrases of its teen tough guys: “Cheezoid!”
Clad only in a filmy nightie, babydoll blonde Jody (Ann-Margret) has broken out of juvenile hall and broken into super-square senatorial candidate David Stratten’s house. As soon as Jody has made herself at home and fallen asleep, we quick-cut from the wide-open eyes of a toy monkey in her arms to the headlights of Stratten’s limo, arriving home after a fund-raiser. Kitten is literally littered with this kind of “lookit-me-I’m-a-fillum-maker" touches, made all the more ludicrous by writer/director Douglas Heyes’s overheated dialogue and situations.
When Stratten (John Forsythe) discovers Jody’s been sleeping in his daughter’s bed, she convinces him that he’s the one in a situation, and he’d better “cool it" unless he wants Jody going to the press. Trying to take the edge off things, he offers his sympathy for the mess Jody’s gotten into, and she flatly replies, “That’s me, the Jody doll—wind me up and no matter which way you point me, I wind up lousy!" As we can already tell, this entire film will be lousy with hilariously “hard-edged" dialogue.
Figuring she’s in the catbird seat, Jody decides to invite three of her “friends" over to Stratten’s to party. It turns out that these three have an even greater mastery of juvenile mumbo-jumbo than Jody does. A brief list of their countless unintentionally comic comments: “Don’t hot up, man, hot down!" “What a brain-bucket!" “Cork it up, you’re beginning to bug me!" and “Cool it, you creep, and coexist!”
Jody’s quick-witted quartet soon coerce Stratten into driving them down to Tijuana to see a striptease show featuring “Patricia Tiara." There, things progressively unravel, ending up in a car chase in which Stratten’s brand-new white 1964 Chrysler Imperial crashes, and inexplicably turns into a 1956 Plymouth as it sails through the guardrail and explodes. Only Forsythe survives.
Even funnier than the film itself was the way Universal sold it. The ad copy: “This is Jody’s story. The kicks she digs. The swingers she runs with. And the special kind of hell she can make for a man." Funnier still—it worked. In 1964, Ann-Margret was Hollywood’s eighth-biggest box-office draw.
Dippy Dialogue
Jody (Ann-Margret) reveling in her newfound surroundings: “Everything is so creamy! Oh, kill me quick—I never had it so good!”