KITTEN WITH A WHIP
D: Douglas Heyes (1964); with John Forsythe, Ann-Margret, Peter Brown, Richard Anderson, Skip Ward, Diane Sayer.
Jody Dvorak (Ann-Margret) is a little psychopath who stabs a matron at a juvenile detention center and escapes. Goldilocks-style, she breaks into a house and curls up in bed for a nap. The house belongs to David Stratton (Forsythe), a prominent, successful, middle-aged man with senatorial aspirations. David’s wife and daughter are out of town, and he drives Jody to the bus station. Jody returns, though, and threatens to ruin his name if he turns her in. With Stratton successfully over a barrel, she invites Ron (Brown), Buck (Ward), and Midge (Sayer) over for a little fun. Things turn ugly, though, when muscle-bound Buck cuts Ron across the arm with a razor and they all have to pile into Stratton’s Chrysler for a trip to a doctor in Tijuana. It all winds up in a free-for-all at a Tijuana motel, followed by an all-Chrysler car chase. Ann-Margret has hardly ever been more fetching or more venomous than in this trashy little thriller. She gets to pout and spout great faux-beatnik lines like “That’s the little Jody doll — wind her up and whichever way you point her, she still turns out lousy!” Her partners in crime get juicy roles too; Ron is a pseudo-intellectual college boy who prattles on about philosophy, while Buck is a large, stupid, and volatile thug. Screenwriter/director Heyes cuts weird, hilarious, all-new beat dialogue out of whole cloth, with lines like, “How come you think you’re something smoky when you’re really just nothing painted blue?” For his part, Forsythe is exasperating as the squarejohn Senate-wannabe Stratton. Being a typical middle-aged, middle-class pussy, he misses more than one chance to get the upper hand or at least make good an escape. You’ll find yourself hollering at the screen in frustration when Buck turns his back and Stratton passes up an opportunity to crack him across the back of the head with a fireplace poker and put a quick end to the whole ordeal. To make matters worse, the credulous Stratton is suckered by Jody every time she turns on the charm, the tears, or the pout, only to have her turn on him once again. If he can’t outsmart a bunch of junior-grade punks like these, he should be perfect Senate material. Still, it’ll be hard to forget the scene where Jody snarls a particularly vituperative speech while a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon plays on a TV behind her shoulder and Carl Stalling’s zany Merrie Melodies score blasts in the background. When she finally runs out of steam, Doodles Weaver’s head pops out of a porthole on the TV screen, and he prattles on about “another fun game to play with grownups!” John Waters must have loved this movie. Listen for the bossa nova score hoisted directly from Welles’ Touch of Evil.
This article appears in February 9 • 2001.