The portions that have to do with "happy talk" television news programs have more of a critical edge than you usually meet up with in a movie theater, but this movie's stature as a critical organ is cut down considerably by its taking a romantic, almost reverential view of the job of "investigative reporter," and by its taking a too self-important, self-congratulatory attitude about its criticisms of "happy talk" news, which, for the most part, are about as genuinely revealing as to point out that TV newscasters, underneath their lacquered exteriors, have digestive tracts like everyone else. The pivotal figure in the TV milieu is a newswoman who specializes in reports on singing telegrams, a tiger's birthday party at the zoo, and other such froufrou, and who is told point-blank by her boss "not to worry your pretty head" with investigative stories. Since it is Jane Fonda to whom this line is said, the viewer is automatically supposed to see red. But the casting of this role makes both the viewer's response and the character's gradual development too deplorably easy. (The moviemakers would have been closer to the desired type, not to mention braver and subtler, if they had instead selected Phyllis George.) The questionable assumption underlying this character is that every TV newswoman with dyed hair, an overtrained speaking voice, and a Miss America smile, is not only ready and willing, but also perfectly able, to metamorphose into a Mike Wallace if given half a chance. Her personal success story -- the "big scoop" at movie's end provides the sort of uplift you might expect from something called Nancy Drew, Cub Reporter -- almost drowns out what is supposed to be the central concern of the movie, which is the danger of nuclear power plants. With Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas; directed by James Bridges. (1979) — Duncan Shepherd