Movie review — The Day of the Jackal
By: Ganesh Rangamani
Tags: Movies To Watch, Classics, Hollywood

I love watching old classics. They bring you back in time and let you enjoy sights that no amount of money can buy you today. Streets of Genoa from the 60s for instance!

Fred Zinnemann had a tough task on hand. Movies based on books are doubly difficult because you are competing not just with other movies released around that time, or your own past hits, but also with the book itself! Comparisons are always made and it is easy to say the book was a lot better. The Bond franchise never had that problem partly because many of the movies barely used material other than the title. And how many of us have read Fleming and then came over to watch Bond, not the other way around?

The book was a thriller and it was a very good one. The sub-plots were skillfully weaved into the main script and did not distract. You really did not have to stretch credulity too much (try that with Bond!) as the plot was entirely believable. As many others have pointed out, a thriller whose end is known to everyone is that much harder to write.

But then the movie pulls it off like few others and IMHO remains an all time classic worthy of top 100 or even top 10.

When was the last time I saw one where not even one frame was wasted or irrelevant? Perhaps North by Northwest. Perhaps some of David Lean’s masterpieces.

The Plot

Is fairly straightforward. A lone assassin is hired to kill French President de Gaulle. He almost succeeds but is stopped by a rather old fashioned, plodding police detective who matches wits with him.

Both face challenges — the official has to deal with leaks at the highest levels that feeds live intelligence to Jackal and the assassin has his cover quickly blown even before he could reach Paris. But he chooses to march on — dramatically portrayed in the movie, where he is shown taking a fork on a mountain road towards Paris instead of going back to Italy. That grim determination seals his fate.

The initial meeting in Austria sets the stage. Fox comes across as a no nonsense guy that knows his job and knows his employers have little choice. And then goes about his task of arranging fake identities and planning with precision and coolness.

In a movie where the central theme itself is violence and features quite a few murders, Zinnemann treats killing as something that should be hinted, not shown. The murder of the blackmailing forger is portrayed softly (as are the other killings) if that is the word to use.

The only strange thing is why couldn’t they get an Italian that speaks with authentic Italian accent to play that role?! The forger speaks British English even as other actors playing various roles try to speak with French accents, genuine or otherwise with varying degree of success. In a movie where the air of perfection and competence hangs about everywhere, this is one strange miss.

All that is to avoid sub-titles of course, and thank God for that! If not the entire movie should have been in French and we would not even be talking about it!

Having acquired his specially fabricated gun, from the professorial Gozzi, superbly played by veteran Cyril Cusack, Jackal proceeds to Paris but has to change plans en route as his cover is blown. He ends up seducing and then killing Countess Montpellier when he suspects she may report their rendezvous to the police, even as she assures him protection. This is a change from the novel, where she finds his gun and is killed. That sounds a lot more reasonable. Why change at all?!

The third disguise portrayed in the novel, that of an American tourist, is not used in the movie. Jackal continues the Danish disguise when he lets himself seduced by a gay man in a sauna so that he doesn’t have to check into a Hotel. By this time the police have already turned it into a open manhunt using the killing of the lady as a reason, without the need to mention de Gaulle. And the Jackal knows that.

After he misses the first shot at the President, Lebel gets him, by “keeping his eyes open”.

On the whole the plot is credible and little has been changed from the novel. The use of Corsican underworld by the police, in the hunt for the Jackal in Paris is one.

Of course, you can find some faults here and there but then a novel is a novel and a movie is a movie. Why would a man that clearly tells his hirers that as a professional he needs to escape after the killing, and may call it off at any stage, venture into the last phase knowing he has been betrayed?! But then the Jackal almost becomes a suicide bomber leaving the escape route entirely unmentioned.

Some of the events are actually factual. Fredrick Forsyth actually wrote to the authorities about the ease with which passports can be obtained using a dead person’s birth certificate. That loophole was plugged much later.

The Actors

Edward Fox, who plays the Jackal is very new but Lonsdale, his adversary and Police Dy Commissioner Lebel, was already a well known and well regarded actor. Both do a very thorough job. Along with practically everyone in the movie. In particular, Alan Badel who plays the Interior Minister. If only politicians were this crisp, competent and unwavering in their job as this man!

The three ladies featured (all redheads, according to internet wisdom) all do a competent job. Particularly Olga Georges-Picot who plays Denise who seduces the Colonel to gather intelligence.

Camera is top class too. Not just in the choice of locations and angles but the way the they portray the urgency of the situation and the tension is beautiful. One almost feels like riding and walking along with the cop when he carries the report from police official Roland to the Interior Minister.

The Verdict

Very few thrillers can be watched twice or more. This is an exception. The filming is top class, and as we mentioned earlier, not a single frame seems out of place.

A classic for all times!