The Day of the Jackal

The Day of the Jackal would probably appeal to the members of a Facebook group called the Dull Men’s Club – recent topics include fuel efficiency while driving, insulating old buildings and dealing with nail fungus. The Dull Men’s Club (a Dull Men’s and Women’s Club also exists) loves detail, procedure, process, how things work and why they sometimes don’t. The Day of the Jackal is the procedural film with knobs on. It came out in 1973 and was made by Fred Zinnemann, an Austrian-born American director based in London who managed to get studio sign-off on his adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s novel about an assassination attempt on the life of General de Gaulle, … Read more