Day of the Jackal (1973) dir. Fred Zinnemann
In August of 1962 Charles de Gaulle survives an assasination attempt by OAS, a paramilitary group opposed to the Algerian fight for independence, and Algeria's recent independence is the reason for the attack. de Gaulle however survives, and the OAS is in large part arrested by the French police. A few top brass OAS members escape and hide in Austria, and they haven't forgotten about their goal. They hire the best contract killer they can find, an Englishman who only wishes to be called "The Jackal". The Jackal is calm, cool, and meticulous in his preparations, and he doesn't leave anything to chance during his preparations. He's also not afraid to get rid of anyone who threatens to get in his way. The French authorities however get word of the operation, and they put their best investigator, Lebel, on the case. Lebel is just as meticulous in his work as The Jackal is in his, and Lebel is soon on his tail, but The Jackal manages to stay half a step ahead.
Day of the Jackal builds on a real assassination attempt aimed at de Gaulle in August of 1962, which he narrowly escaped. From there the movie departs from reality, at least a little. But not so much that de Gaulle dies. And that's one of the interesting things about this film. It's a suspense thriller, where you know the ending. At least you did in 1973. Today, maybe not everyone is intimately familiar with de Gaulle's life and fate. Usually a bit part of the allure of a suspense movie is how will it end. So how do you keep the suspense up when everyone already knows the ending? It even takes quite a while before the cat and mouse play between the Jackal and Lebel really forms. Instead an unknown ending being a driving force, The Jackal is the big driving force in this movie. Who is The Jackal, and how will he fail? The Jackal is a very alluring character. He's incredibly cool, he's the best in the business, and everything is planned to the tiniest detail. How will he ever fail this? Who could possibly best him? Lebel is that man, but only in part due to luck, as The Jackal missed his shot at de Gaulle when the president leaned down just as the trigger was pulled. Sort of a way to say that The Jackal was good enough. He was chased by half of France, but he still got a shot off a de Gaulle. A shot that would have been perfectly placed, had de Gaulle not made an uncharacteristic move. Had the shot hit de Gaulle, no one would have known who and from where it had come, and The Jackal would have escaped calmly without anyone suspecting a thing. If not for Lebel on the other side of the door, The Jackal's equal, or opposite perhaps, depending on how you look at it. Of course The Jackal was not who we and the police thought he was. Who he was remains a mystery to everyone. An unsatisfying and perfect ending to the movie.
The Jackal reminded me quite a bit of Alain Delon in Le Samouraï, the coolest man ever in his coolest role ever. Edward Fox does an admirable job for me to even make that connection. But there's a distinct difference between the two characters. Delon in Le Samouraï is much like a man pretending to be a super cool assassin from an American film. He's very cool for the sake of being cool. With The Jackal you don't get the sense that he's cool just to be cool. He's cool because being cool gives him the best chance of succeeding, and because he has taken every eventuality into account, and he's ready for everything. So there's no need not to be cool. There's an air of German efficiency to the way that Fox portrays The Jackal. While Delon plays Jef Costello as a mix of all American noir stars dialled up to 11, yet understated. Two radically different approaches, that both work wonderfully in the movie they are in.
Michael Lonsdale has the unfortunate task of playing Fox' counter piece. Claude Lebel is everything but cool. he's a greying man with an unfortunate moustache and a bit of extra cushioning. Physically as well as morally he's the opposite of The Jackal. But in terms of wits they are each others equals, and perhaps Lebel is the superior here. Lonsdale does a very good job though and easily goes toe-to-toe with Fox.
I'm not sure if you can call a four time Oscar winner underrated. But Fred Zinnemann is not one of the first names that springs to mind when you think of big Hollywood directors of the 50s and 60s. Maybe because he doesn't have a discernible style of his own. We've watched The Nun's Story and The Day of the Jackal here recently, two very different films. But Zinnemann excels no matter what style he needs to make his movies in, and I think he's certainly in the top tier of American filmmakers of that period.