In the late 1960s and into the 70s, a lot of Hollywood films tried very hard to upend the old notions of movies. Instead of the nice old Production Code, the late 60s brought in all sorts of deliberately unsavory things--things meant to challenge traditional morality. Think about it...films like "Bonnie & Clyde" and "The Wild Bunch" brought violence to a whole new level. Additionally, films like "Sex and the Single Girl", "Midnight Cowboy" and this movie, "Klute" brought sex out of the closet and right into the audience's faces. Because of this, back in 1971 this film really had a big impact and brought Jane Fonda an Oscar for playing a prostitute. But is it good? I would say yes...but certainly not great. While Fonda's performance is very good, the story itself seems almost like an episode of "Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit". It was novel then but today it doesn't seem quite to groundbreaking. Overall, I'd score this one an 8 back in '71 and a 6 today.
Klute
1971
Action / Crime / Mystery / Thriller
Klute
1971
Action / Crime / Mystery / Thriller
Plot summary
Six months after the disappearance of Tuscarora, PA businessman Tom Gruneman, his boss, Peter Cable, and his wife, Holly Gruneman, hire Tom's friend, private detective John Klute to find out what happened to Tom, as the police have been unable to do so, and despite John having no expertise in missing persons cases. The only lead is a typewritten obscene letter Tom purportedly wrote to Manhattan actress/model/call girl Bree Daniel, who admits to having received such letters from someone, and since having received several mysterious telephone calls as well. The suggestion/belief is that Tom was one of Bree's past johns, although she has no recollection of him when shown his photograph. Bree's tricking is both a compulsion and a financial need. In their initial encounters, John and Bree do whatever they can to exert their psychological dominance over the other, especially as Bree initially refused to even speak to him. Despite their less than friendly start, they embark on a personal relationship based on emotional need, but it is a relationship Bree tries to sabotage because of those same issues which causes her to turn tricks. As they follow the leads through Bree's call girl world, they know they're getting close to finding the truth when someone continues to torment Bree. They believe the key to Tom's disappearance is a violent john who tried to kill her a few years earlier when Tom disappeared but who she doesn't remember. The questions become whether John and Bree can discover his identity and stop him before he tries to kill Bree again, and whether there is a future for them together.
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I think this played better back in 1971
Engrossing slow-burner
A pretty good paranoia piece from the early 1970s. I think Pakula would go on to do better work but this is still worth a look thanks to the close attention to characterisation, the psychological depth, and the eerie and ominous atmosphere which makes you feel like you're watching HALLOWEEN at times. Sutherland and Fonda are both excellent in the lead roles, although the title is slightly problematic given that Sutherland's role is far more extraneous than Fonda's. A real slow-burner, but engrossing with it.
A fascinating study leading into the strange world of a complex call-girl
"Klute" was a mixture of lone cop and private eye: a police officer who was hired privately to investigate somebody's disappearance
The trail led him deep into the world of New York call-girls, pimps and drug addicts
It was all shown, the vice, the degradation, but with intelligent compassion and honest humanity instead of the leer that so often sits on the face of the Seventies
Although barely more talkative than "Dirty Harry," "Klute" emerged as a whole human being rather than as a robot programmed to shoot and hit
And as a high class hooker Bree Daniel, Jane Fonda achieved a characterization that has never been surpassed in all the abundant literature of tarts with hearts
"Klute" was a modern, as honest and unflinching as any fanatic for realism could ask; yet it was never curious about sexuality, never needlessly violent, never brutal
And for complete, entertaining suspense, it was up there with the great ones: an enormous tribute to the producer-director Alan J. Pakula