The Day of the Jackal (1973)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Production Notes Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1973
Running Time	136:38
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (64:48)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Fred Zinnemann
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Edward Fox Alan Badel Tony Britton Cyril Cusack Michel Lonsdale Eric Porter Delphine Seyrig
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	Georges Delerue

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Portuguese Danish Finnish Dutch German Swedish Norwegian Polish Czech French Greek Turkish Hungarian Bulgarian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, during credits

    The story is set in France, in 1963. President Charles De Gaulle has granted independence to the former French colony of Algeria. This has angered many in France, in particular, some sections of the military, who lost many men in the fight over Algeria. An extremist group, the OAS, has decided that the President must pay with his life, however, all assassination attempts to date have failed, mainly because of intelligence leaks. The hierarchy of the OAS decide that there can be only one way to success: hatch a plan that only the three leaders of the organization know about. The plan involves importing an anonymous assassin, and the man they recruit is an Englishman only known to them as The Jackal (Edward Fox). The Jackal remains without identity, but as he meticulously prepares his plans, the best detective in France (Michel Lonsdale) attempts to get onto his trail, with the resources of the entire French government at his disposal.

    What follows is a brilliantly executed game of cat and mouse as the ruthless killer and the devoted detective both single-mindedly seek their respective goals. They are both solitary men, but there are a host of minor characters moving in and out of the movie, kind of like a series of vignettes, as the action seamlessly moves from one location and situation to the next. Director Fred Zinnemann (High Noon) beautifully paces the action as the tension mounts to the inevitable finale: there are no lingering shots on actors' reactions or the like, but rather, character is revealed through the very attitude with which the participants take to their various tasks.

    The Day of the Jackal is based on the Frederick Forsyth best-seller of the same name, and the movie certainly does the novel justice, establishing itself as a classic in its own medium. As a footnote, The Jackal (made in 1997, and only very loosely based on the original) starring Bruce Willis in the title role has none of the style and finesse of the original, and consequently, should be avoided in favour of the 1973 classic.

Video

    This was a reasonably sharp and detailed transfer: in fact, surprisingly so. There was a little grain on display at times (such as at 3:20-3:38, 5:20-5:30, 27:28 and 88:54) but this was no doubt a feature of the source material rather than the transfer, with almost all of the movie being shot on location, and quite a bit of it in places that were difficult to light. I did not see any low-level noise.

    The colour palette was typical of films made in the seventies: a little muted, with browny tones dominating. Age would have also dulled the source material a little, however there were some lush reds on display in some of the offices of the French officialdom. Blacks were a little on the greyish-brown side, and the countryside was not as vibrantly green as you could hope, but all in all, the palette was represented quite naturally bearing in mind the age of the movie.

    MPEG artefacts were absent, however, there were many instances of aliasing. These were caused by the usual suspects such as cars (0:55-1:03 and 84:56), trains (40:30), and shutters (89:05). There were also a number of instances of moiré effect on various patterned items such as at 7:33 and at 83:07. There was a jittery kind of effect that I noticed at 39:17, and then subsequently at another couple of points, but I concluded that these were not related to the transfer, but rather, to the fact that this movie was filmed prior to the introduction of Steadicam, and the instances all involved the camera following a character on foot in places where it would have been impractical to lay tracks for it. Film artefacts were a prominent feature of the first five minutes or so, but they seemed to decrease in regularity as the film went on. They were mostly in the nature of black and brown flecks of dust. I also noticed a couple of missing frames at 83:16.

    This disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer change occurring at 91:06. It is mid scene, however it is cleverly placed at a static and silent shot of a doorbell, thereby minimizing the distraction.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue was reasonably clear, though at times some of the various accents on display made the occasional line a little difficult to understand. Audio sync was not a concern, but occasionally (such as at 41:08) dialogue spoken in exterior locations was obviously relaid.

    The Georges Delerue (Platoon) score consisted of no more than a few minutes over the opening credits and some marching band stuff toward the end, however, it served the movie well. The only other real instances of music were a number of renditions of the French national anthem, which was understandable as a central part of the plot was the various public appearances of the French president.

    Being a Dolby Digital 1.0 track, the surrounds were silent. I was a little surprised, though, to hear the subwoofer spring into action on a couple of occasions - namely in various scenes involving trains and fast driving - however this was the exception rather than the rule.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Production Notes

Theatrical Trailer (2:03)

• Cast and filmmaker biographies and film highlights.
• 192 Kb/s Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack.

• Nothing.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall