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In 1971, celebrated director Alan J. Pakula unleashed one of the grittiest films of that (decisive) decade: the neo-noir thriller Klute. Starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, and Roy Scheider, Klute concerns itself with the exploits of a high-end call girl who slowly gets wrapped up in a missing persons case when an out-of-state detective arrives in New York City and requests her help tracking down a former client.

Practically the definition of 70s cinema, Klute became the first entry in what would later come to be known as Alan J. Pakula's "paranoia trilogy," which also includes 1974's The Parallax View, followed by 1976's All the President's Men. But the film's legacy is far more extensive than just its director's filmography. Klute has also proven to be an extremely influential film for an entirely new generation of filmmakers, directors like Matt Reeves, who, time and time again, has pointed to...

Richard Roundtree’s two-fisted detective tale burst on the scene announcing that a craze called Blaxploitation was on the way. No matter that the movie is somewhat slow and drab — John Shaft was the identification figure denied black audiences for 60 years, a hero who takes no guff from nobody and consistently tells The Man where to head in. Even bigger was the music theme by Isaac Hayes, which transforms Shaft’s casual stroll through Times Square into an iconic image of the 1970s. Criterion’s presentation of Gordon Parks’ smash hit has the original feature in 4K Uhd and in Blu-ray with the first sequel Shaft’s Big Score! in Blu-ray only.

Shaft

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1130

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 100 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 21, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Gwenn Mitchell, Lawrence Pressman, Victor Arnold, Sherri Brewer,...

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By Fred Blosser

“The Don Is Dead,” a 1973 crime drama directed by Richard Fleischer, is available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. Unassuming but sharply executed, it may offer a bracing slice of old-school pizza for viewers who were disappointed by David Chase’s “The Many Saints of Newark” earlier this year. In Fleischer’s film, an unexpected heart attack claims Don Paolo Regalbuto, one of three powerful crime bosses in an unnamed American city. Since organized crime abhors a vacuum even more than nature does, the “national commission” of bosses quickly meets to decide the fate of the Regalbuto crime Family. No one ever uses the word “Mafia,” but wink-wink, you know whose these guys are anyway. One of the three bosses with whom Don Paolo shared control over their city, Don Jimmy, is away in prison and represented at...

Military ensemble pictures work well when the excitement is all about the job and working under pressure: Charlton Heston, Stacy Keach, Ned Beatty and even David Carradine are excellent in this credible story about a near-impossible rescue of submariners trapped 1400 feet below. It’s a solid Navy disaster scenario, unusually authentic and realistic — until the dramatists require actor Ronny Cox to act like an emotional idiot. Those U.K. disc producers do it justice with some excellent extras, including a piece with a Navy specialist who worked with the rescue craft seen in the movie… and who later became a well-known film historian, author and film series organizer.

Gray Lady Down

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1978 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min. / / Street Date October 25, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK /

Starring: Charlton Heston, David Carradine, Stacy Keach, Ned Beatty, Stephen McHattie, Ronny Cox, Dorian Harewood, Rosemary Forsyth, Hilly Hicks, Charles Cioffi, William Jordan,...

Stars: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Roy Scheider, Robert Milli | Written by Andy Lewis, Dave Lewis | Directed by Alan J. Pakula

Released in 1971, Alan J. Pakula’s sophomore feature Klute is regarded as the first of his unofficial Paranoia Trilogy, which would go on to include The Parallax View and All the President’s Men. However, Klute is far less overtly political – and far more intimate – than those later pictures.

Donald Sutherland plays the titular John Klute, a private investigator who is employed to look into the disappearance of a man named Tom (Robert Milli). Apparently, shortly before his death, Tom was sending filthy letters to a New York call girl named Bree (Jane Fonda). So, John heads to NYC to interview Bree. Once there, a stuttering, sad and sensual relationship begins.

John’s task is to trace the points backwards from Bree’s encounter with a man who...

By Brian Greene

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“It’s easy to manipulate men.”

That’s a key line in Alan J. Pakula’s 1971 film Klute, which has just been released in a new Criterion Collection edition. The line is delivered by a New York City call girl named Bree Daniels, as portrayed by Jane Fonda, who won a Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar for this performance.

“It’s easy to manipulate men” is a striking declaration, especially when it comes from the mouth of a paid sexual escort. But some context is necessary here, because when Daniels utters that line to her psychiatrist – in one of a few crucial scenes that take place in Daniels’s shrink’s office – she is actually talking about the one man in her life whom she’s not sure she can control. This is John Klute (played by Donald Sutherland...

Costa-Gavras’ superlative political thriller begins with a skeptical attitude, but soon pulls viewers into the depth and breadth of a monstrous political crime aided and abetted by our own U.S. government. Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon headline a strong cast, in a story that our State Department called a pack of lies — until the truth became undeniable.

Missing

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1982 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 122 min. / / Street Date August 27, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £18.47

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek, Melanie Mayron, John Shea, Charles Cioffi, David Clennon, Richard Venture, Jerry Hardin, Richard Bradford, Joe Regalbuto.

Cinematography: Ricardo Aronovich

Film Editor: Françoise Bonnot

Original Music: Vangelis

Written by Costa-Gavras, Donald Stewart from a book by Thomas Hauser

Produced by Edward Lewis, Mildred Lewis

Directed by Costa-Gavras

Costa-Gavras’ 1981 Missing has by now topped the Greek-French director’s list of powerful political thrillers: ‘Z’, State of Siege, The Confession. Still considered a highly controversial title,...

Nicholas Meyer's first directing effort is a classy science fiction thriller best remembered for a charming romantic angle, and for introducing many of us to the marvelous Mary Steenburgen. Clever storytelling pits Malcolm McDowell against fellow time tripper David Warner, in a fourth-dimensional pursuit of none other than Jack the Ripper. Time After Time Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1979 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen, Charles Cioffi, Kent Williams, Andonia Katsaros, Patti D'Arbanville, Corey Feldman, Shelley Hack, Clete Roberts. Cinematography Paul Lohman Film Editor Donn Cambern Original Music Miklos Rozsa Written by Nicholas Meyer story by Karl Alexander & Steve Hayes Produced by Herb Jaffe Directed by Nicholas Meyer

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Known for his smart scripts -- face it, even Invasion of the Bee Girls is an intelligent script -- Nicholas Meyer broke into the writer-director hyphenate...

By Hank Reineke

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit up front that Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir’s character, Remo Williams (aka “The Destroyer”) has played a small, but significant role in my life.

My older sister had been a high-school friend of one of the author’s daughters. Though the passing of time has made the chronology of events a bit hazy, I’m guessing it was through that friendship that I was first introduced to Warren Murphy’s teenage son. It was the son who – upon learning I was a big fan of his father’s pulp-paperback novels – graciously gifted me a personally autographed copy of The Destroyer #3: Chinese Puzzle (1972). This now-tattered paperback proudly sits on my book shelf to this very day. This, I guess, would have been about 1978. I was seventeen years old. I’m fifty-four now and admit I hadn’t...

Jane Fonda: From ‘Vietnam Traitor’ to AFI Award and Screen Legend status (photo: Jason Bateman and Jane Fonda in ‘This Is Where I Leave You’) (See previous post: “Jane Fonda Movies: Anti-Establishment Heroine.”) Turner Classic Movies will also be showing the 2014 AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony honoring Jane Fonda, the former “Vietnam Traitor” and Barbarella-style sex kitten who has become a living American screen legend (and healthy-living guru). Believe it or not, Fonda, who still looks disarmingly great, will be turning 77 years old next December 21; she’s actually older than her father Henry Fonda was while playing Katharine Hepburn’s ailing husband in Mark Rydell’s On Golden Pond. (Henry Fonda died at age 77 in August 1982.) Jane Fonda movies in 2014 and 2015 Following a 15-year absence (mostly during the time she was married to media mogul Ted Turner), Jane Fonda resumed her film acting career in 2005, playing Jennifer Lopez...

Stars: Fred Ward, Joel Grey, Wilford Brimley, J.A. Preston, George Coe, Charles Cioffi, Kate Mulgrew, Patrick Kilpatrick, Michael Pataki | Written by Christopher Wood | Directed by Guy Hamilton

Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris… the eighties action movie megastars, but what about Fred Ward? I’ll admit this is the first time I’ve seen Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins… but now I have I know it deserves to be high on top eighties action movies lists.

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins… starts with a faked death and a new identity. Forced to be a part of a secret organisation known as Cure he is put into training with Chiun (Joel Grey) a master of an ancient Korean martial art known as Sinanju. As his training progresses he makes good progress, but soon his skills are needed for a mission not only to protect his country but also Cure itself.

Lee Grant (ex-Rose, Search For Tomorrow; ex-Stella, Peyton Place) - 83

Charles Cioffi (ex-Kirk, Another World; ex-Claudius, Ryan's Hope; ex-Ernesto, Days Of Our Lives) - 75

Deidre Hall (ex-Marlena, Days Of Our Lives) - 63

Andrea Hall (ex-Hattie/Samantha, Days Of Our Lives) - 63

Nolan North (ex-Chris, Port Charles) - 40

Scott Clifton (Liam, The Bold And The Beautiful; ex-Schuyler, One Life To Live; ex-Dillon, General Hospital; ex-Fritz, Life In General; ex-Caleb, Undressed) - 26

Trivia: Also born on this day, in 1941, was the late Brent Collins who made a big soap impact in the 1980s with his roles as Mr. Big on As The World Turns and Wallingford on Another World. He died in 1988 at age 46.