The Day of the Jackal (1973) on Netflix
PG19732h 23mCrimeDramaThriller
The Organisation armée secrète hires a foreign hitman code-named the Jackal to kill President Charles de Gaulle. Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel is tasked with tracking him down.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.8/1053,685 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Trailer
Plot summary
An attempt by the Organisation armée secrète to kill President Charles de Gaulle fails, and the group's leaders take refuge abroad. They hire an apolitical British assassin they call the Jackal, who demands $500,000, half of it upfront in a Swiss bank account, and complete autonomy. The OAS raises the money through bank robberies. The Jackal travels to Genoa for a custom single-shot rifle and false identity papers, then goes to Paris, where he copies a key to a flat overlooking a square. French intelligence learns of the plot while questioning an OAS clerk, and at a secret meeting Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel is named to lead the hunt, though de Gaulle refuses to change his schedule.
Cast
- Denis Careyas Casson
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Day of the Jackal (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Frederick Forsyth was offered either 20,000 pounds for outright sale of his novel in perpetuity or 17,500 plus a small percentage of the film's net profits; he took the 20,000, and later wrote that his naivety about finances cost him considerably more money given the film's enduring success.
- Fred Zinnemann wrote that Adrien Cayla-Legrand, the actor who played de Gaulle, was mistaken by several Parisians for the real de Gaulle, even though the former French president had been dead for nearly two years before production began.
- Universal Studios wanted a major American actor as the Jackal and flew Robert Redford and Jack Nicholson to Europe to audition; although the studio favoured Nicholson, Fred Zinnemann secured a production agreement stipulating that only European actors would be cast.
- When the 1997 American remake The Jackal was made, Frederick Forsyth, John Woolf, Fred Zinnemann and Edward Fox opposed it and filed an injunction preventing Universal Pictures from using the name of the original novel and film, so it was marketed as "inspired by" the book.
- The Liberation Day sequence was filmed during a real parade, and the crowd, many of whom were unaware that a film was being shot, mistook the actors portraying police officers for real ones and tried to help them arrest the "suspects" they were apprehending.
