Finally finished jury duty last night, with a certificate of appreciation and parking ticket to show for it.

Sending someone to death row never gets any easier, you know?

Anyway, allow me to share the eleventh (or so) wonder of the world, the come-hither eyes and eyeful of everything else that was Jacqueline Bisset in 1970, in the thermally cheesy flick The Grasshopper. As you can tell from the trailer, the title could be The Bedhopper, or maybe The Showerstepper, or anywhere Bisset displays her, ummm, talents.

This flick fits between Bisset's attention-grabbing role as Steve McQueen's worried girlfriend in Bullitt, and her breathtaking scuba diving during opening credits of The Deep. The Grasshopper catches her at that moment between hot-blooded males wondering what that ingenue looked like under the sheets, and stardom that meant she didn't need to take off her clothes much anymore. Pity.

For a 13-year-old boy, The Grasshopper was a joyous occasion, a rite of budding manhood you might say. Bisset plays a young woman who moves to L.A. with her eventually unfaithful boyfriend, a pain she soothes in classic fashion, by bonking as many dudes as possible. Can this truly lead to happiness, or even rent money?

The Grasshopper also marked the second time I recall the f-word being used in a movie, about three months after MASH broke the taboo and a month before Joe demolished it. True, it's only expressed in skywriting and never with all four letters shown at once. But it counts for me.

I didn't realize until now that the horny minds behind The Grasshopper are sitcom comedy kings Garry Marshall, Jerry Belson and Jerry Paris, who never put Laverne, Shirley or Laura Petrie through such sordid affairs. Or that the pseudo-hip soundtrack features Brookyln Bridge (The Worst That Could Happen), Bobby Russell (Honey, Little Green Apples) and Vicki Lawrence, who hasn't been the same since The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.

Such historical tidbits are lost on a pimply-faced kid when an international treasure like Jacqueline Bisset is flouncing around in the buff. She still looks good for her age, turning up the heat a bit on Nip/Tuck, among other roles. Enjoy!