In The Day of the Jackal (1973) (available on a 10/10 Universal DVD), director Fred Zinnemann made a surprisingly taut thriller, using a brilliantly combined French and British cast, led by Edward Fox, Michel Lonsdale, Alan Badel and Delphine Seyrig. Although the movie runs no less than 143 minutes, the direction and film editing (Ralph Kemplen) are so crisp, there is not a moment that fails to hold suspense. The screenplay by Kenneth Ross (whose writing career in movies is remarkably sparse - Brother Sun Sister Moon, The Odessa File, Black Sunday, and The Fourth War were his only other titles up to 1973) - is a model in the art of storytelling.The superbly lensed location photography by Jean Tournier also adds immeasurably to the overwhelming sense of inexorable reality.

Fred Zinnemann's 'The Day of the Jackal' is a patient, studied and quasi-documentary translation of Frederick Forsyth's best-selling political suspense novel. The film appeals more to the intellect than the brute senses, as it traces the detection of an assassin hired to kill French President Charles de Gaulle.The story is set in Paris during a week in August of 1962. President De Gaulle (played by an uncanny look-alike), by granting Algeria their independence, upsets right-wing extremists and disgruntled war veterans, who form a secret terrorist organization known as OAS and vow to assassinate him. The film opens to a failed attempt on De Gaulle as he rides in a motorcade. After the OAS culprits are arrested and their leader executed six months later, their new leader and his three top aides secretly hire a mysterious Englishman- the eponymous Jackal (Fox) - to assassinate the President. Jackal accepts the offer and begins his methodical work to prepare the assassination. In the meantime, French security services receive some information about OAS plans and decide to hand over the case to Inspector Lebel (Lonsdale), the best investigator in France. But he doesn't even know who the jackal is. He learns the name "Jackal" from an informer in the plotter's ranks and cleverly pieces together the identity of the killer-for-hire.What follows is an intricate and meticulous story with a parallel structure that details the Jackal's preparations for the assassination and Lebel's efforts to stop him. The major asset of the film is that it succeeds in maintaining interest and suspense despite obvious viewer foreknowledge of the outcome. Director Zinnemann faithfully follows the source, presenting a precise, almost discomfiting reconstruction of the story. He directs it with the skill of a master craftsman, creating a riveting cat-and-mouse game between the mysterious lone-wolf hired assassin known only by his code name and the master policeman in charge of the investigation. He does a fine job of presenting the narrative in such a precise way despite offering no psychological analysis or humor, building in tension to the concluding assassination attempt. Playing the titular Jackal, Edward Fox is superb as the coldly impassionate killer. He's boyishly charming, impeccably groomed, possessed of an easy laugh, and casually ruthless. Michael Lonsdale is properly plodding, yet magnificently analytical as the detective tracking him down.The Day of the Jackal is a polished, electrifying thriller, mercifully unburdened with heavy political digressions. The screenplay meticulously assembles an incredible array of material, and then Fred Zinnemann choreographs it so that the story - complicated as it is - unfolds in almost documentary starkness. Telling the story very methodically, by exposing small details that would later be important pieces of great puzzle, he manages to achieve a dignified tone and compelling pace seldom seen in latter-day thrillers.

First off, there are Literally Thousands of Movies out there with lots of Gunfights, Explosions, Sexy Ladies, Fisticuffs and Expounding Musical Scores, this is not one of them. It decides to take an Approach of Clean and Cool Detachment. A Docu-Style that is as Refreshing as it is Riveting. It is a Compelling Piece of Cinema in the way it is so Meticulous and Calculating. Heavy on Detail and the Pacing, Editing, and Exposition provide the Suspense and the Drama. The Film Effortlessly Divides the Story between the Assassin and Law Enforcement with Crisp, Lean, Dialog and the Action comes from Preparation, and like the rest of the Movie, there is nothing that is Padded or Unnecessary.Its Tension is in its Restraint as both Sides are Increasingly Clever and Resourceful as Things move along with the Elegance of a Streamlined Sports Car. Minimalist in Style but not in Production, it Masks its Difficulties with an Anti-Style that becomes Hypnotic and Attains a Style of its Own. No Visceral Attempts are made but they are Forthcoming. No Pretensions as the Taut Tempo comes from the Technicalities and both Protagonist and Antagonist are as Cold and Calculating as they need to be. This makes for a Fictional-True-Crime Thriller that is a Heartless but Palpitating Picture.

A police procedural in the guise of a political thriller, "Day of the Jackal" is impressively-detailed but more restrained than many of its peers. Star power and the promise of intense action took its genre cousins "The French Connection" and "Three Days of the Condor," for example, to $40-50 million finishes in 1971 and 1975, respectively, but the slower-boiling "Jackal" barely broke $16 million. In quality of production, "Jackal" excels but seems to hearken back. It has the feel of an early 1960s film (and since it is set in 1963 that is appropriate), with the clothes and the cinematography and even the posh European setting all feeling right for a slick actioner of that era. The plot follows detectives and assassins, the first always half a step behind the second, but there is none of that stuff called "grit" that defines so many crime and espionage movies from the 1970s onward. Everything is in broad daylight, beautifully-shot with the smooth, washed-out look of director Zinnemann's other color productions like "Julia" (1977) and "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), and the necessary violence is handled perfunctorily and virtually bloodlessly. Nobody shouts, the one car crash is an accidental fender-bender, and when a French minister is implicated in an embarrassing security breach in the middle of a briefing he quietly apologizes and excuses himself. Nobody makes a scene. The decision to go with a low-key script is interesting, especially since the audience presumably knows that President Charles de Gaulle was not the victim of assassination and therefore knows from the beginning how the main plot will end. But the strength of a procedural, as opposed to a thriller, is not always in tension but in detail and the depiction of characters, and in these respects Zinnemann is master.