Fred Zinnemann had not made a movie since his award-winning A Man for All Seasons (1966) when he happened upon a manuscript in the office of British producer Sir John Woolf. "It's a suspense thriller; I just bought it," Woolf said, according to Zinnemann's autobiography. "It will be published next month. You can't put it down." Zinnemann took the manuscript home, read the entire book through the night, and next morning called Woolf and suggested they film it. Woolf agreed.

The book, The Day of the Jackal, was written by Frederick Forsyth, a reporter who had been assigned for several years to cover French President Charles de Gaulle. During that time, he assembled a wealth of details about the president and his government and, after losing his job over a dispute with the BBC over coverage of the war in Biafra, he spent 35 days cranking out the novel. The plot had some basis in fact; attempts had been made on De Gaulle's life before, and it was known that military elements of French society were infuriated by Algeria's winning independence.

The novel was printed in over 30 editions in more than 15 languages with more than a half million in sales in the hardback edition alone. It had been in the top three positions on the U.S. bestseller list for six months, ten weeks of that as number one. In the U.K. it was a bestseller for ten months. As Zinnemann himself found, it was a real page-turner that readers devoured for its sense of suspense and excitement.

"The challenge was to see if we could maintain the same sort of breathless expectancy on the screen," Zinnemann said. "It would be like putting together a giant puzzle, all coldly rational, without any kind of emotion."

Zinnemann entrusted the adaptation to screenwriter Kenneth Ross, whose only previous credit had been the vastly different Franco Zeffirelli film about the life of St. Francis of Assisi, Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972)

Because the film was planned as an international co-production, Zinnemann had to find a cast of actors from several countries that was up to the task but not such high-profile stars that they would detract from the rather impersonal semi-documentary style he thought best for approaching the story. He brought together a number of French and English actors whose work he admired, among them Delphine Seyrig, Michael Lonsdale, Michel Auclair, Derek Jacobi, Eric Porter, and Alan Badel. His trickiest casting, however, was the crucial title role.

Zinnemann wanted a relative unknown to play The Jackal, someone young, clean-cut, deceptively cheerful and friendly. "My idea was to find someone who was against the type of what one would think a professional killer looks like," he said. "In addition, I thought that it would be very interesting to have something aristocratic about him, very English upper class." He found his actor in Edward Fox, who had recently won a British Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for Joseph Losey¿ film The Go-Between (1970). Zinnemann had seen Fox in that picture and was impressed with the way he delivered what he considered an "impossible" line - "Nothing is ever a lady's fault" - with such conviction "that he made me believe it."

The other trick was getting someone to portray De Gaulle. Casting Director Margot Capelier found an actor, Adrien Cayla, who specialized in impersonating the beloved French president, who had died two years previously. Cayla had studied De Gaulle¿ minutest gestures, down to his habit of never touching the rim of his cap when he saluted.

Zinnemann and Woolf expected difficulties in securing locations and cooperation because of the sensitive and controversial nature of the story, but the director later credited the smooth diplomacy of producer Julien Derode with achieving a surprisingly eager degree of cooperation from French authorities. They also approved of the way Ross depicted them and their work.

by Rob Nixon