Great Character: Bree Daniels (“Klute”)

It’s perhaps the best performance in Jane Fonda’s acting career, one for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress: Bree Daniels in the 1971 mystery-thriller Klute.

The IMDb plot summary: A small-town detective searching for a missing man has only one lead — a connection with a New York prostitute [Daniels].

An assessment of Fonda’s performance in Cinelogue:

Bree is a character that’s as good a representation of feminism during the Women’s Lib movement as I’ve seen on film, and that depiction is aided tremendously by Fonda’s phenomenal performance.

Daniels’ character is riveting. Here are five revealing scenes with her psychiatrist:

Her dialogue is straight out of the neo-noir tradition:

You’re not gonna get hung up on me, are you?

Don’t feel bad about losing your virtue. I sort of knew you would. Everybody always does.

Men would pay $200 for me, and here you are turning down a freebie. You could get a perfectly good dishwasher for that.

What’s your bag, Klute? What do you like? Are you a talker? A button freak? Maybe you like to get your chest walked around with high heeled shoes. Or make ’em watch you tinkle. Or maybe you get off wearing women’s clothes. Goddamned hypocrite squares!

And for an hour… for an hour, I’m the best actress in the world, and the best fuck in the world.

Daniels is an Attractor archetype, a character in a long line of Hollywood’s fascination with the proverbial “hooker with a heart of gold” including Belle Watling in Gone With The Wind, Charity Hope Valentine in Sweet Charity, Erin Grant in Striptease, Lana in Risky Business, Ophelia in Trading Places, and perhaps the most famous Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman.

But among them, Bree Daniels stands out as a truly great character.

[Originally posted Jul 29, 2011]