Review of The Day of the Jackal (1973) by Richard S — 23 Mar 2008

I first saw this film when it was released in 1973. I was on vacation with my parents in Plymouth, Mass. I was ten years old and this was one of the first grown-up movies I had ever been taken to see. I remembered it as a good movie, but I had not seen it again in the intervening thirty-five years.

I just watched it again, and I must say that this was the rare case where my ten-year-old self had an aesthetic judgment that I can be proud of as an adult. This film holds-up very well. The tension builds despite one's knowledge of the outcome.

Fred Zinneman had not lost his touch by the 1970s, which is more than one can say for many of his peers.