The movie Jane Fonda admits was “terrible”
A legend of the silver screen who thrived in the 1960s and 1970s, American icon Jane Fonda is known as one of the industry’s most beloved stars. Collaborating with the likes of Hal Ashby, Sydney Pollack, and Arthur Penn across the course of her career, Fonda earned seven Academy Award nominations and won two Oscars for her contributions to cinema, being best known for 1968’s Barbarella.
Enjoying a formative decade in the 1960s, Fonda appeared in various roles, finding her feet in such movies as The Chase, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and Sunday in New York. But, it would be in the following decade when the actor would truly thrive, earning her first Oscar in 1972 for her performance in Alan J. Pakula’s Klute opposite Donald Sutherland and Roy Scheider.
Still, despite the multitude of classics Fonda made, she was also similar to countless other Hollywood stars in that her filmography was far from perfect. For every Klute, there was such a dismal offering as 1989’s Old Gringo or, indeed, 2023’s 80 for Brady, yet, there is one movie that was so bad that even Fonda herself saw the flaws in it, calling it “terrible” many years after its release.
Speaking to Star Tribune back in 2019, Fonda was asked whether any of her own movies make her cringe in hindsight. “There’s enough other stuff going on in the world that makes you want to cringe,” Fonda responded before admitting, “I’m surprised how many people say they love Sunday in New York. Why? I made a terrible movie called In the Cool of the Day. John Houseman produced it. I can’t even remember the name of the director. It also starred Peter Finch and Angela Lansbury, and we shot it in Greece. I’m not even sure that it got released.”
Telling the story of a rift that grows between two young people and the loves they pursue as a result, In the Cool of the Day was directed by Robert Stevens, who would later go on to helm two celebrated episodes of The Twilight Zone. But, even if Fonda regrets the movie, she can rest knowing that she shared the disaster alongside a number of other iconic stars, including Peter Finch, Angela Lansbury and Arthur Hill.
Elsewhere in the same interview, Fonda was asked which of her films she wished got more attention from critics and audiences. “Well, I did an ABC movie called The Dollmaker that I’m very, very fond of,” she responded, “It took me 12 years to get the script ready. Interestingly enough, it took Hume Cronyn and a woman who writes children’s books to get it right.”
Take a look at the movie Fonda considers “terrible” below.
