She passes this on to her contact, which, in turn, aids the Jackal. Clair, a personal military aide to de Gaulle and a cabinet member, carelessly discloses classified government information to his mistress, Denise, unaware she is an OAS agent. Lebel is given special emergency powers, though de Gaulle's refusal to change his planned public appearances complicates matters.Ĭolonel St. Police Commissioner Berthier recommends his deputy, Claude Lebel, to lead the investigation. The Interior Minister convenes a secret cabinet meeting of the heads of the French security forces. Wolenski dies under interrogation, but not before the agents extract vital information about the plot, including the word 'Jackal'. The French Action Service kidnap the OAS's chief clerk, Viktor Wolenski. In Paris, the Jackal duplicates a key to a flat overlooking the Place du 18 juin 1940. The Jackal travels to Genoa and commissions a custom rifle from a gunsmith, and fake identity papers from a forger, whom the Jackal kills when the man tries blackmailing him. The remaining OAS leaders, now hiding in Austria, plan another attempt, and hire a British assassin, who goes by the code name 'Jackal', for $500,000. Within six months, OAS leader Jean Bastien-Thiry and several other members are captured and Bastien-Thiry is executed. The assassination attempt fails, leaving de Gaulle and his entire entourage unharmed. On 22 August 1962, the militant underground organisation OAS, infuriated by the French government granting independence to Algeria, attempt to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. The British Film Institute ranked it the 74th greatest British film of the 20th century. The film grossed $16,056,255 at the North American box office, returning $8,525,000 in rentals to the studio. The Day of the Jackal received positive reviews and went on to win the BAFTA Award for Best Editing (Ralph Kemplen), five additional BAFTA Award nominations, two Golden Globe Award nominations, and one Oscar nomination. Based on the 1971 novel of the same name 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 1962. The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 British/French international co-production political thriller film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Edward Fox and Michael Lonsdale.

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