What would Henry say?: "Klute"

I'd say this was meant to be the shocking side of Jane Fonda -- after all, she plays a hooker -- but that would dismiss the whole "Barbarella" thing. Not that dismissing "Barbarella" would be a bad thing, mind you.

"Klute" is one of those movies from the '70s that nobody ever seems to talk about -- as opposed to, say, "Five Easy Pieces" -- because it doesn't have an iconic scene or memorable quote. Sure, our girl Jane is sassy as a call girl trying to make good in New York amid a missing person investigation. But it's not like she delivers a "We'll always have Paris" line. The most memorable scene is the one that Fonzie mentions in "Night Shift": Fonda looking at her watch while faking the time of her life during a trick. Not exactly something you see on an AFI Top 100 list, is it?

Our story actually starts in Pennsylvania, where a decent, hard-working family man has gone missing. As it turns out, a call girl in Manhattan may be connected, and a fellow named John Klute (Donald "Heaven Help Us" Sutherland), who worked with the man, decides to investigate. That leads him to the Big Apple and Fonda's front door, and the sparks fly. Meanwhile, someone keeps breathing heavy on the other end of Jane's phone line. And he didn't even pay her!

It's not a bad little suspense movie, even if it pokes along in places. That pacing is deliberate, of course, with all sorts of "OK, now what's going on?" moments. Makes sense, considering the director was Alan J. Pakula, who later made "All The President's Men" (which everyone knows) and "The Parallax View" (which many don't, but it's a solid thriller). The paranoia is less political here than in those movies, and it generally works well.

As for the leads, Sutherland is fun to watch simply because he's so young and earnest -- not in a "Leave It to Beaver" way as much as a "Dragnet" way, i.e. "Just the facts, ma'am." Of course, that doesn't keep him from sampling Fonda's wares.

Ah yes ... Fonda. Well, I can't say she's convincing as a call girl. Even with the swearing and sexy talk, there's still too much girl next door in her. And come on ... she doesn't even give us any real nudity. In one scene, there's the obligatory naked back shot, followed by a tight shot of her front that a nipple might have sneaked into. Then there's another scene in which she's topless for some time, but we're watching from a distance, with plenty of shadows. I know she won an Oscar for this, but I gotta say, she didn't earn it nearly as much as Halle Berry did in "Monster's Ball" or Holly Hunter did in "The Piano." Now that's showing us the goods.