Klute

An executive disappears in Pennsylvania. The only trace he leaves is a set of obscene letters sent to Bree Daniels, a call girl in New York. The private detective John Klute goes to New York to take the case and starts watching her. Bree meanwhile goes to auditions, talks about herself in therapy and realises somebody is watching her all the time. Alan J. Pakula directed. Jane Fonda plays Bree and Donald Sutherland plays Klute. It opened on 23 June 1971. Fonda did not want the part at first and asked Pakula to hire Faye Dunaway instead. Once she accepted she prepared by observing high-class call girls in New York and drew on women she had known in France. On a 2.5 million dollar budget it took 12.5 million. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 92 percent with an 8.2 average and Metacritic at 81. Fonda won the Best Actress Oscar and the Golden Globe for the role, and the screenplay was nominated as well. Roger Ebert gave three and a half stars out of four. Who it is for: viewers who like the paranoid American cinema of the seventies and films carried by a single performance. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the murder mystery at the centre. The title is the detective's name, but the film is about Bree.