This movie actually does have some pretty interesting moments as it features a woman who hides in a guy's house where the guy finds out she's a criminal. The strongest parts of this film are easily in the first third. Ann-Margaret actually does a pretty good job in the leading role and she does know how to create some good moments of tension. It's a shame that after awhile the film really does fall apart. We get all of these other characters who get involved in the story and they take the limelight away from her.It was getting hard to follow. Well, I never thought it was that great to begin with, but it definitely had better parts earlier on. I did like the re-emergence of Ann-Margaret more towards the end and it actually is creative at times. The title doesn't really mean anything and is just a metaphor. I do think it might have worked as just a short film around a half hour long. There's a lot of better stuff out there and a lot of worse stuff, so I guess it's just in the middle. **

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.

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 ****

****SPOILERS**** Weird and unbelievable movie, well after the Bill Clinton/Monica Walinsky affair I'm willing to believe anything, about an up and coming California politician David Stratton, John Forsythe. Stratton got the state senate seat in his sights but ends up getting blackmailed kidnapped beaten and almost killed by a young women, and her oddball friends. Stratton found the bunch sleeping in his daughters bedroom one morning when he came back from a political dinner, both his wife and daughter were on vacation.The young women Jody, Ann-Margret, gives David a sob story about her being a runaway from a broken home and the jerk falls for it. I really think that Stratton fell for Jody's gorgeous VA VA VOOM body more then anything else. The guy may be a bit foolish and naive but he's not blind. David goes as far as going out to the store to get Jody a new set of clothes but as David is away Jody calls her friends to come over to David's place and party. It turns out that Jody isn't the sweet and innocent fawn that she claimed to be but a hardened juvenile delinquent who just escaped from a home for uncontrollable young girls. That after she tried to burn the place down and stabbed an attendant who tried to stop her, wild and crazy girl that Jody is. Crashing David's house that night Jody's friends Ron Buck & Midge, Peter Brown Skip Ward & Diane Sayer hold David hostage as they drink and drug themselves into such a wild frenzy that Midge later leaves them in terror. Ron in what had to be a drug induced hallucination tells Buck to slash him with a razor. It's his way of showing that his will-power can stop the pain and bleeding from the wound! Instead he ends up being in danger of bleeding to death. Getting David to drive the three across the border to a doctor that they know in Mexico to treat Ron they go on a drug and drinking binge in Tijuana. It gets so out of hand that even Jody can't take it anymore and gives David back his car keys to take her back across the border to California. Judy then plans to give herself up to the police and face the music. David driving with Jody to California is then attacked on the highway by Buck & Ron who drive David them off the road but the two are so stoned and drunk that they lose control of their car and go crashing off a cliff into flames and to their deaths. With Jody thrown clear from David's car and smashing her skull killing herself, only David survived the double car crash. The police covered up David's involvement with the three dead felons and thus saved his reputation his marriage and political career. David laying in his hospital bed with his head and ribs and bones broken can now recover and get back to the normal world that he lived in. Thats before Jody walked, or slept, into his life with nobody but himself and the police knowing for better or worse what happened. Don't you just love those Hollywood happy endings.