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The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 film set in late 1963, based on a novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, it stars Edward Fox as the assassin known only as "the Jackal" who was hired to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. Image File history File links Day_of_the_jackal_ver1. ...
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Fred Zinnemann (April 29, 1907–March 14, 1997) was an Austrian-American film director. ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Sir John Woolf and James Woolf of Romulus Films. ...
David Deutsch (born 1953) is a physicist at Oxford University. ...
Kenneth Ross is an Australian playwright and screenwriter best known for writing the 1980 play Breaker Morant, based on the life of Australian soldier Harry Breaker Morant and later adapted into a film by the same name. ...
Edward Charles Morrice Fox, OBE (born 13 April 1937) is an English stage, film and television actor. ...
Georges Delerue Georges Delerue (March 12, 1925 Roubaix - 20 March 1992 Los Angeles) was a renowned French film composer who composed over 500 scores for cinema and television. ...
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is the 136th day of the year (137th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
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The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
// Events The Marx Brothers Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. ...
The Day of the Jackal is a thriller novel by Frederick Forsyth, first published in 1971, about a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French terrorist group of the early 1960s, to kill Charles de Gaulle. ...
Frederick Forsyth. ...
Fred Zinnemann (April 29, 1907–March 14, 1997) was an Austrian-American film director. ...
Edward Charles Morrice Fox, OBE (born 13 April 1937) is an English stage, film and television actor. ...
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Despite being heavily promoted, and being based on a very successful novel, the film was a box-office failure. It did, however, make Edward Fox into a star, even though many speculated that the film's lack of an established star (with Michael Caine having lobbied for the lead role) was the reason for its lack of success. It possesses one of the most nail-biting and electrifying denouments of all films. Edward Charles Morrice Fox, OBE (born 13 April 1937) is an English stage, film and television actor. ...
This article is about the English actor. ...
Synopsis Dissatisfied with French President Charles de Gaulle's decision to give independence to Algeria, the OAS, a militant french underground organization, decides to assassinate De Gaulle, believing they can restore the glory of France by killing De Gaulle. The leader of the OAS, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry botches the attempt, and along with several other members of the plot, end up being caught and executed. The remaining leadership of the OAS, demoralized and having fled the country to escape capture, realize that they cannot finish the job they have started through their organization and have to hire a professional assassin to do the job. Please post proper article, this page was tampered with, thank you. ...
The Organisation de larmée secrète (OAS; Secret Army Organization) was a short-lived French right-wing terrorist group formed in January 1961 to resist the granting of independence to the French colony of Algeria (Algérie française). ...
Assassin and Assassins redirect here. ...
General de Gaulle at upper left, Bastien-Thiry at upper right Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry (October 19, 1927 – March 11, 1963) was a French military air weaponry engineer and the last who attempted to assassinate President of France Charles de Gaulle. ...
After examining the dossiers of several candidates, they settle on one man, who comes to visit them. He points out that they have no choice about hiring a professional assassin, not only is their organization riddled with police informants, but their bungling has now made the job even more difficult because De Gaulle's security has been dramatically enhanced due to the attempt. He agrees to take the assignment provided they pay half of his very large fee in advance, and comply with several minor conditions. There will be no further contact between the four men, other than they will set up a telephone number in Paris he can call to get information. He will only be known by his code name: The Jackal. Jack Ruby murdered the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in a very public manner. ...
For other uses, see Telephone (disambiguation). ...
A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. ...
The movie follows the methodical preparations the Jackal makes, including the determination of how, when and where to perform the hit (which is not disclosed to us), creation of a number of fake identities and obtaining the resources to do the job, such as a rifle modified to look like something else, and photographs of himself as an old man. Despite being the title character, in the movie the "Jackal" seems to talk the least of all the characters; we understand his motivations and his cunning brilliance by his actions. The violence also seems very subdued; the additional killings The Jackal performs in the process of covering his actions are brief and almost invisible, or are performed off-screen.
Meanwhile, French security forces, upset because of the sudden rash of bank robberies in France, discover that they are being done by members of the OAS, who do not know why they have been ordered to do them. Realizing that the leadership of the OAS are using the bank robberies to finance something, French Security decides to detain their chief clerk: Adjutant Viktor Wolenski. Rather than request Wolenski's extradition from Austria, French Security decides to invoke self-help: they kidnap him from Italy and smuggle him across the border into France. Adjutant is a military rank or appointment. ...
Extradition is the official process by which one nation or state requests and obtains from another nation or state the surrender of a suspected or convicted criminal. ...
Self-help, in the sense of a legal doctrine, refers to a situation where a person implements his rights without resorting to legal writ or consultation of higher authority, as where a financial institution repossesses a car on which they hold both the title and a defaulted note, retrieving one...
Torturing Wolenski to death, French Security extracts enough information to discover that there is quite possibly a plot on the life of President De Gaulle by a foreign assassin whose code name may be Jackal, and if that is the case, it represents a national emergency. The Prime Minister convenes the entire cabinet, and the head of the State Police admits there is no way they can find this Jackal by normal means. They can't detain him at the border; they don't know his name. "Action Service" (the government's professional assassins) can't destroy him if he's in another country: they don't know whom to destroy. They can't arrest him if he's in the country; they don't know who he is. They can't search for him, they don't know what he looks like. Without a name and a face, they can do nothing to stop him. In short, they need the best detective they can find to put out a total effort to discover who The Jackal is - and do it in secrecy - before he succeeds and plunges France into a crisis. A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. ...
A cabinet is a body of high-ranking members of government, typically representing the executive branch. ...
The Police Commissioner admits there is one man - one of his employees - who can do the job: Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel. Lebel is told to drop everything, focus on finding The Jackal and stopping him. He will have full powers and any resources he needs, subject to just two requirements of the job: no publicity, and do not fail. As in the novel, Deputy Commissioner Lebel is given a seemingly impossible assignment. Lebel's assistant Caron asks, "But no crime has been committed yet, so where are we supposed to start looking for the criminal?", to which Lebel answers, "We start by recognizing that, after De Gaulle, we are the two most powerful people in France."
As the Jackal has set up his methodical preparations to commit the crime, Lebel also methodically prepares every method he can devise to try to determine where The Jackal might be from, how he might perform the act and when and where he will do so. With assistance from the old boy network of police agencies in other countries, they discover a lead by looking for British subjects who have obtained passports as an adult using birth certificates of deceased children, and find a dead child, Paul Oliver Duggan, who applied for a passport decades after he had died. British authorities also discover whom they suspect The Jackal might be, Charles Calthrop, and realize that - while it may be a coincidence - "Cha" in Charles and "Cal" in Calthrop spell the French word for Jackal. An old boy network or society can refer to social and business associations among former pupils of top male-only public schools (independent secondary schools) in the United Kingdom, such as Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Charterhouse, private schools in Canada, and, to a lesser degree, to university students (notably Oxbridge...
The police search the apartment belonging to Calthrop, and recover his passport. Which brings up the question, if they have his passport, what's he traveling on? French authorities are notified of Calthrop's identity as Duggan, and will look for him. Lebel discovers only a few hours too late that Duggan - The Jackal's false identity - has already entered the country.
The Jackal stops in a hotel, finds an attractive, bored married woman, Madame Montpellier, whose husband is away on holiday, and carries on a fling with her. He goes to her home (after secretly discovering her address from the hotel register) to see her for a few days. She mentions to him that the police were there, asking questions about him, and she knows he stole the car he has because it has local plates, but she's willing to protect him if he'll tell her what he's doing. He kills her and escapes out the window. For other uses, see Vacation (disambiguation). ...
A casual relationship is a term used to describe the physical and emotional relationship between two people who may have a sexual relationship or a near-sexual relationship without necessarily demanding or expecting a more formal relationship as a goal. ...
In the mean time, Lebel discovers that there is an informant in their midst: a telephone tap exposes that one of the members of the cabinet has a mistress, and has been revealing the top-secret details of their investigation to her in pillow talk. It turns out that she was feeding the information to a contact that The Jackal was calling. One of the members of the cabinet is curious, how did Lebel know who's telephone to tap to find out who the informant was. Lebel admits he didn't know, so he had a tap placed on all of their telephones. Several of the cabinet members are shocked.
The Jackal disposes of Calthrop's identity, and substitutes that of a Danish schoolteacher. He travels on to Paris. Meanwhile, the police discover Madame Montpellier has been murdered, so now Lebel no longer has to look for The Jackal in secrecy, police can simply make a full public search for her murderer. They discover that the Danish Schoolteacher, Per Lunquist, whose passport was stolen, got on the Paris-bound train. They race to the station only arriving a few minutes too late to prevent The Jackal from escaping.
Lebel realizes that they have only a few days to find the Jackal because he realizes he will strike during a medals ceremony at the next public holiday. Apparently dissatisfied at Lebel's presumptiousness in tapping their phones, the cabinet dismisses him with their thanks, saying they no longer need his help.
At a gay bathhouse, The Jackal is approached by another man, who picks him up. They go back to the man's apartment. Later the man sees a TV in a shop without sound, recognizing the Jackal's face but not knowing why. As he mentions this to The Jackal, the TV in the apartment has a newsflash telling that Per Lunquist is wanted for the murder of Madame Montpellier. The Jackal kills the man off-screen in his kitchen, then calmly sits down and watches the TV.
The Prime minister recalls Lebel, realizing that despite having in excess of 100,000 police and gendarmes looking for The Jackal, they can't find him, he's disappeared and they need Lebel after all.
On the day of the celebration, The Jackal passes a gendarme who inspects his papers. The Jackal has become a chameleon: by using certain tricks, he has made himself look like an elderly amputee. The Gendarme, seeing a one-legged old man on a crutch, lets him pass. The Jackal goes into an apartment, kills the landlady, unties his leg from behind his buttocks, goes into a top-floor flat, and reveals to us that his crutch had a more sinister purpose, as he disassembles it to produce the rifle which was disguised as the crutch. For other uses, see Chameleon (disambiguation). ...
The Jackal sets up his sniper's nest and aims his weapon at the spot where De Gaulle will stand as he gives out medals at the procession. He waits. Meanwhile, Lebel is continuing to circulate, trying to figure from where The Jackal will strike. Lebel runs into the gendarme who had met the disguised Jackal, and the two of them run toward the apartment. For other uses, see Sniper (disambiguation). ...
Meanwhile, De Gaulle is presenting medals to war veterans, and The Jackal has him in his sights. De Gaulle has stopped for a moment, and is standing. The Jackal takes the shot.
De Gaulle moves, and The Jackal misses the shot. As he attempts to reload, Lebel and the gendarme bust down the door. The Jackal uses his rifle to kill the gendarme. As he is attempting to again reload, Lebel grabs the gendarme's machine gun, quickly figures out how to use it, and before The Jackal can also kill him, sprays a hail of bullets which tosses the body of The Jackal across the wall of the room, dead. Lebel looks out the window as the oblivious De Gaulle continues with the ceremony, unaware of how close death came to him that day.
As British police are looking over Calthrop's apartment, he walks in, and demands to know who they are and what they are doing there. So now we discover that the Charles Calthrop that they had investigated was not The Jackal.
At the end of the film, as we watch The Jackal's coffin being lowered into the grave, we are left with the question: "Who the hell was he?"
Cast and roles Edward Charles Morrice Fox, OBE (born 13 April 1937) is an English stage, film and television actor. ...
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Alan Badel (1923-1982) The barnstorming actor Alan Badel was born in Rusholme, Lancashire on 10 September 1923. ...
Tony Britton (born June 9, 1924), is a veteran British film and television actor. ...
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Cyril Cusack (November 26, 1910 – October 7, 1993) was an Irish Shakespearean actor, who appeared in more than 90 films [1]. Born in Durban, Natal, South Africa he was the son of a sergeant in the mounted police and an actress. ...
Maurice Denham (born as William Maurice Denham on December 23, 1909 at Beckenham, Kent; died July 24, 2002) was an English character actor who appeared in over 100 television programmes and films throughout his long career. ...
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Delphine Seyrig (April 10, 1932 - October 15, 1990) was a stage and film actress and a film director. ...
Sir Donald Alfred Sinden, CBE (born Plymouth, 9 October 1923) is an English stage and film actor. ...
Jean Sorel (born in Marseille, 25 September 1934) is a French actor. ...
Jean Bastien-Thiry (October 19, 1927 – March 11, 1963) was a French military air weaponry engineer who attempted to assassinate President of France Charles de Gaulle. ...
David Swift (born 1933) is a British actor, best known for his role in the sitcom, Drop the Dead Donkey. ...
Timothy West CBE (born October 20, 1934) is a British film, stage and television actor. ...
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Philippe Léotard (August 28, 1940 - August 25, 2001) was a French actor and singer. ...
Gendarme (pronounced ) can mean: Gendarme (historical): a horseman, usually of noble birth, belonging to the cavalry of the French army in the late-Medieval to Early Modern periods of European history A military police officer belonging a gendarmerie. ...
Féodor Atkine (b. ...
Yvonne de Gaulle was the wife of Charles De Gaulle. ...
Herbert Gustavus Max Faulkner, (July 29, 1916 – February 26, 2005), was an English golfer. ...
Andréa Ferréol (born January 6, 1947) is a French actress. ...
Edward Hardwicke (born August 7, 1932; sometimes credited as Edward Hardwick) is a British actor, the son of Sir Cedric Hardwicke and actress Helena Pickard. ...
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Nicholas Young may refer to: Nicholas Young (executive) (1840-1916), a baseball executive Nicholas Young (actor), a British actor Nicholas Young (sailor), an 18th century sailor Nicholas Young (figure skater) (b. ...
Trivia The movie was rather faithful to the book, with variations: - In the movie, the Jackal buys his rifle from a gunsmith and kills a blackmailing forger in Genoa, Italy; in the book those locations were Belgium. Also, he meets with the gunsmith a third time in the novel after the target practice.
- In the movie the Jackal is involved in a car accident and takes the other car, although it is not explained how he manages to keep from being mauled by a savage dog in the second car-nor does it explain how he manages to move the dead driver to his own wrecked car or the fate of the dog.
- In the novel the Jackal kills a French noblewoman when she accidentally discovers he is planning to assassinate Charles De Gaulle; in the movie she doesn't discover his objective, but he kills her anyway.
- In the novel a French cabinet minister who unknowingly gives secrets to a mistress/OAS agent resigns his post when his activities are exposed; in the movie he commits suicide.
- In the novel the Jackal knocks unconscious the elderly caretaker of the building from where he will make his shooting post; in the movie he kills her.
- Many of the character names are also changed. For instance, OAS courier Viktor Kowalksi becomes Wolenski; Jacqueline, the OAS agent who seduces the Interior Minister, is re-named Denise; and Madame Montpellier's name in the novel was Madame de Chalonniere. Also, the Jackal's alias in the novel is Alexander James Duggan, as opposed to Paul Oliver Duggan.
- In the film, Wolenski/Kowalski is kidnapped in Rome by Action Services agents; in the novel, he returns to France to visit his daughter, who is dying of leukemia, and is arrested there.
- The OAS leaders played a much more prominent part in the novel than the film.
Also, in a minor historical inaccuracy, Colonel Jean Bastien-Thiry, leader of the August 22nd, 1962 attempt on De Gaulle's life, is claimed to be the head of the OAS. Though Bastien-Thiry was indeed in charge of planning the real-life plot, he was not actually involved in the organization, at least officially. For other uses, see Genoa (disambiguation). ...
Jean Bastien-Thiry (October 19, 1927 – March 11, 1963) was a French military air weaponry engineer who attempted to assassinate President of France Charles de Gaulle. ...
OAS may stand for: Old Age Security Oracle Application Server Oral Allergy Syndrome Organisation de larmée secrète Organization of American States Office Automation Systems Option Adjusted Spread Oas, Albay is a municipality in the Philippines. ...
The French government was extremely helpful in the filming of the movie, providing soldiers and use of exclusive locations for the filming of the final Liberation Day sequence. Fred Zinnemann wrote that Adrian Cayla-Legrand, the actor who played De Gaulle, was mistaken by several Parisians for the real thing during filming - though De Gaulle had been dead for two years prior to the film's release. Liberation Day is a day, often a public holiday, that marks the liberation of a place, similar to an independence day. ...
See also The Day of the Jackal is a thriller novel by Frederick Forsyth, first published in 1971, about a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French terrorist group of the early 1960s, to kill Charles de Gaulle. ...
The Jackal is the main character in the fictional book The Day Of The Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, which features a storyline centered on a professional assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulles life in the summer of 1963. ...
// This is a list of fictional stories in which assassinations feature as an important plot element. ...
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