by Tom Piatak
Frederick Forsyth was a talented, engaging writer. But he holds a special place in my heart for one reason: He wrote Day of the Jackal, a superlative first novel, which Fred Zinnemann turned into a perfect movie.
The book and movie concern a plot by the OAS to use a professional assassin to murder French president Charles de Gaulle. The OAS was formed by French military men outraged by what they saw as de Gaulle’s betrayal of French Algeria. The assassin’s codename is Jackal.
I call it a perfect movie because Zinneman tells Forsyth’s story so masterfully that one cannot imagine that story being told better by anyone else.
And what a story! Completely believable in every detail, exciting, and keeping the reader or viewer wondering what will happen next even though he knows, from the very beginning, that the Jackal must fail, because Charles de Gaulle was never assassinated.
Forsyth’s Jackal is so resourceful that I find it impossible not to want him to succeed.
My favorite scene in the movie: the Jackal has learned, before entering France, that his cover was blown. Under the agreement he made with the OAS, he could refuse to murder de Gaulle and still have the remainder of the money he is to be paid deposited in his Swiss bank account.
Driving a white Alfa Romeo convertible, the Jackal comes to a fork in the highway. One sign says “Paris,” the other “Italy.” He stops his car for a moment and thinks. He then pulls the cover down on the convertible, and races off to Paris, one man alone against the entire French security apparatus that has already demonstrated its complete ruthlessness. (Jackal’s cover was blown when the French tortured to death a man who screamed “chacal.”)
A truly great book, a truly great movie.
P. S. Many Americans dislike deGaulle. I used to be one of them. Then I learned about Anne de Gaulle.
