Frederick Forsyth, who passed away earlier this week, was a master of the thriller genre, his plots made sharp and topical due to his earlier career as a journalist and spy.
When he returned to the UK, after wandering around as a war correspondent, he was broke. He wrote The Day of the Jackal, based on his own experiences in France, which was a massive success and was turned into a hit movie by Fred Zinnemann, its meticulous plotting, suspense and pace, jumping effortlessly from page to screen.
The film is set in the early 1960s and revolves around a professional assassin known as ‘The Jackal”‘, hired by a French terrorist organization, OAS, to kill President Charles de Gaulle. The Jackal’s real name is never revealed, and his character is shrouded in mystery, making him a compelling and enigmatic figure. Forsyth had said of his character, “I was fascinated by the idea of a professional assassin, someone who could blend in seamlessly with society while carrying out his deadly missions…The Jackal’s character was inspired by the concept of a ghost, someone who could appear and disappear without leaving a trace… I wanted the Jackal to be a mysterious figure, someone whose true identity and motivations are never fully revealed.”
The organisation, OAS, described in the novel did exist and did conspire to assassinate de Gaule, but the rest was fiction, because the President was not murdered in real life. That did not matter to readers or viewers, because the plot was so compelling.
Edward Fox was cast in the role, which has been imitated many times in many films, yet continues to be fascinating. Eddie Radmayne played him in a recent web series that used the character in a contemporary setting. Michel Lonsdale played Inspector Lebel, who goes in pursuit of the assassin on the loose.
The Jackal demands half a million US dollars for his job, and to raise the money, the OAS members rob several banks. Meanwhile, the Jackal prepares carefully for the killing. The French Action Service discovers the plot, if not the actual modus operandi. In an era before computers and cell phones, it was all a chess-like game of anticipating the quarry’s next move. The Jackal changes identities several times and kills anyone who could identify him.
Lebel, a step behind, figures that the Jackal will probably attempt to shoot De Gaulle in three days, when the president makes several public appearances for Liberation Day. On the day, the Jackal, disguised as an old amputee, with a rifle hidden in his crutch, shows his forged papers and is allowed through to enter the apartment building he had found earlier as the spot to carry out the shooting.
Jackal shoots but the bullet misses because just at that moment the president bends down to kiss the recipient on the cheek. Lebel and a policeman burst into the room; while the Jackal shoots the policeman, Lebel guns down the Jackal.
The look of the film may be dated, but the plot holds, and the pace seems breathless even over its two-and-a-half hour running time. Five other Forsyth bestsellers were turned into movies, but this one, like so many firsts, remains the best.
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Edward Fox, Michel Lonsdale, Terence Alexander and others
On Amazon Prime Video (to rent/buy, Rs 99)
