6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Jody, a juvenile delinquent, escapes from reform school by stabbing a matron and attempting to burn down the building and then takes refuge in a house owned by an ambitious politician David Patton. Despite the hellcat's ample charms, the would-be officeholder wants nothing to do with her and tries to drive her away. She responds by shortly returning to his house accompanied by a gang of delinquent pals and taking him hostage. A sudden act of violence causes more trouble, leading Jody and her gang to hijack David and force him to drive a getaway car to Mexico.
Starring: Ann-Margret, John Forsythe, Peter Brown (I), Patricia Barry, Richard Anderson (I)Thriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.00:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 2.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
A curious one, Kitten with a Whip is. The 1964 film features Ann-Margret pitted against John Forsythe in a story with little in the way of identifiable purpose. Partly playful turns to somewhat scary and a little violent for good measure as a peculiar relationship takes several odd turns along the way. Douglas Heyes, whose background prior to Kitten saw him behind the camera on several popular television series (Maverick, The Twilight Zone, The Virginian), directs with a little uncertainty of purpose and story coherence. The picture moves breezily enough at under 90 minutes, but it ultimately bears little fruit in terms of its dramatic fulfillment, favoring situational awareness over the long haul approach.
Note: IMDB lists this film's original aspect ratio as 2.00:1; Universal's Blu-ray
is presented at a slightly more open 1.85:1.
Kitten with a Whip's 1080p transfer passes as acceptable but struggles to reach anything close to resembling perfection. The picture appears
heavily processed. It's very digital rather than filmic in its appearance. It appears overly sharpened and grain is chunky as a result. The picture is not
destroyed, however; fine detail remains with somewhat impressive clarity and definition, but the overall feel of processing reduces quality by a fair bit.
Still,
close-ups fare well enough, showing off essential skin, clothing, and location details with effective definition. The grayscale presentation is pleasant.
Brights are crisp and blacks are solidly deep without crushing details or lightening around the frame, while the midrange grays enjoy quality gradation.
There is some serious white bloom surrounding the opening titles. Banding is evident in places (see the 3:50 mark), compression issues are
occasionally visible, and the odd speckle appears throughout. The image would have been better without the digital tampering, but it's adequate as it is.
Kitten with a Whip purrs onto Blu-ray with a serviceable but imperfect DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. The presentation includes a slight underlying hiss, at times, to keep with the feline lingo. It's mild and comes and goes with dialogue. The spoken word does position in a center imaged location with occasional drift away towards the sides (listen to a conversation around the 45-minute mark). General dialogue clarity is decent but does struggle with sounding a little tinny at times while also a bit loud at reference volume. Music and effects present with adequate width but also struggle to hold firm, lifelike fidelity. Like dialogue, both are a bit boosted at reference listening levels. The track certainly carries the material well enough but listeners wishing for a more fruitful, accurate presentation will be left listening to various shortcomings along the way.
Kitten with a Whip contains no supplements content. There is no top menu screen; pressing the top menu button returns users to the player's menu screen, requiring a disc restart. The pop up menu offers only crude text options to toggle subtitles on and off. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This disc does not ship with a slipcover.
Kitten with a Whip builds a quickly interesting and pulse-pounding premise but never quite goes anywhere all that satisfying with it. The movie offers several juicy undercurrents and quality character dynamics but settles on leaving the audience to sort out some of the details rather than be spoon-fed the whole truth. And that's at least refreshing. But it's also a bit too opaque to truly elevate the material; in the hands of a Hitchcock type the movie may have very well worked much better. Universal's featureless MOD release delivers troubled, but passable, 1080p video and two-channel lossless audio. Worth a look at an aggressive sale price.
(Still not reliable for this title)
1964
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1950
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1967
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1989
1953
Special Edition
1946
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1955
Reissue | Special Edition
1948
1958
5 Steps to Danger
1957
1987
1994
Warner Archive Collection
1950
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1990
Special Edition
1974