Kitty Can’t Help It (1975)

Later re-released as The Carhops (because some of the characters are waitresses at a drive-in restaurant), this abysmal sex comedy involves a group of young women trying to get their friend laid properly. The protagonist, Kitty (Kitty Carl), can’t find a man who satisfies her, so she shares her problem with buddies who include hookers and swingers, as well as carhops. All of them tell their boyfriends and/or husbands to sleep with Kitty, but none gets the job done. It’s not as if Kitty has compunctions about screwing her friends’ significant others. Instead, “comedic” circumstances intrude just when things get hot. In one scene, Kitty and a dude try humping in the desert, but Kitty freaks out when a large iguana appears nearby. Seeking to look macho, the dude not only picks up the iguana but also tries to kiss the lizard, which bites the dude’s tongue. And so on. Kitty Can’t Help It comprises one underwhelming scene after another, and most of the acting is shoddy. One exception is the versatile Jack DeLeon, whose psychopathic character torments Kitty whenever the filmmakers decide, unwisely, to include something serious; DeLeon’s portrayal is miles away from his best-known recurring role as an urbane homosexual on the sitcom Barney Miller. Yet the only genuinely famous person in the cast is Pamela Des Barres, who plays one of Kitty’s generous friends. Previously known as “Miss Pamela,” Des Barres is a notorious rock-music groupie who penned the definitive memoir on servicing popular musicians, I’m With the Band (1987). Weirdly, Wes Craven served as one of this schlocky film’s editors, even though he’d already directed his first horror movie, The Last House on the Left (1972).

Kitty Can’t Help It: LAME