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Klute

Klute is a 1971 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alan J. Pakula and starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Nathan George, Dorothy Tristan, Roy Scheider and Rita Gam. Its plot follows a high-priced New York City call girl who assists a detective from Pennsylvania in solving the missing person case of a john who may be stalking her. It is the first installment of what has informally come to be known as Pakula's "paranoia trilogy", followed by The Parallax View (1974) and All the President's Men (1976), all films dealing with themes of paranoia, conspiracies and surveillance.

The original screenplay for Klute was written by brothers Andy and Dave Lewis, with Andy drawing inspiration from a serial he read as a child about a man attempting to solve his brother's murder in a city. Principal photography took place in late 1970 and early 1971 in New York City.

Klute was released theatrically in the United States on June 23, 1971, by Warner Bros. to critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised the film's direction and screenplay, with Fonda's performance receiving widespread critical acclaim, while the film grossed over $12 million against a $2.5 million budget.

Klute received two nominations at the 44th Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay, with Fonda winning Best Actress. At the 25th British Academy Film Awards, Fonda received a nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role. At the 29th Golden Globe Awards, it received a nomination for Best Screenplay, with Fonda winning Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.

After Pennsylvania chemical company executive Tom Gruneman disappears, the police find an obscene letter in Gruneman's office addressed to a New York City call girl named Bree Daniels, who had received several such letters. After six months of fruitless police work, Peter Cable, a fellow executive at Gruneman's company, hires family friend and detective John Klute to investigate Gruneman's disappearance.

Klute rents an apartment in the basement of Bree's building, taps her phone and follows her as she turns tricks. Bree appears to enjoy the freedom of freelancing as a call girl while auditioning for acting and modeling jobs, but she reveals the emptiness of her life to her psychiatrist. Bree refuses to answer Klute's questions at first. After learning that he has been watching her, Bree says that she does not recognize Gruneman. She acknowledges having been beaten up by a john two years earlier, but cannot identify Gruneman from a photo. She further admits to Klute that she is a nervous and paranoid person. Bree takes Klute to meet her former pimp Frank Ligourin, who had managed Jane McKenna, a prostitute who had referred the abusive client to Bree. McKenna has apparently committed suicide and their other colleague Arlyn Page has since become a drug addict and disappeared.

Klute and Bree develop a romance, although she tells her psychiatrist that she wishes their relationship would end because she felt more in control of herself when turning tricks. She tells Klute that she is paranoid that she is being watched. They find Page, who tells them that the photo of Gruneman is not that of the client, who was an older man. Page's body is later found in the river. Klute connects the apparent suicides of the two prostitutes, surmising that the client was using Gruneman's name. He also thinks the client killed Gruneman and might kill Bree next. Klute revisits Gruneman's acquaintances. By typographic comparison, the obscene letters are traced to Cable, to whom Klute has been reporting during his investigation. Klute asks Cable for money to buy the "black book" of McKenna's clients to learn the identity of the abusive client. He leaves enough bread crumbs to see whether Cable reveals his own complicity in the murders.

Cable follows Bree to a client's office and reveals that he sent her the letters. Cable tells her that after Gruneman accidentally found him physically abusing McKenna, Cable was worried that Gruneman would use the incident to sabotage Cable's career, so Cable tried to frame Gruneman by planting the letter in his office. After playing a snuff audiotape he recorded as he murdered Page, he attacks Bree. When he sees Klute rush in, Cable abruptly lurches backward, crashing through a window to his death.

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