The Day of the Jackal is a 1973

Anglo-French political thriller film directed by Fred Zinnemann

and starring Edward Fox and Michel Lonsdale.

Based on the 1971 novel

The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, the film is about a professional assassin

known only as the "Jackal" who is hired to assassinate French

president Charles de Gaulle in the summer of 1963.

The Day of the Jackal received positive reviews and went on to win the

BAFTA Award for Best Film Editing (Ralph Kemplen), five additional BAFTA Award

nominations, two Golden Globe Award nominations,

and one Academy Award nomination.

The film grossed $16,056,255 at the box office, and

earned an additional $8,525,000 in North American rentals.

Plot

On 22 August 1962, an assassination attempt is made

on the President of France

General Charles de Gaulle by the militant French

underground organisation OAS in anger

over the French government granting independence to Algeria.

As the president's motorcade passes,

de Gaulle's unarmoured Citroën DS car is raked with machine-gun fire,

but the entire entourage escapes without injury. Within six months,

OAS leader Jean Bastien-Thiry and several other members

of the plot are captured, and Bastien-Thiry is executed.

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