Corrected entry: When the Jackal boards the train for Paris, about 40 minutes from the end of the film, the engine of the train is blue; when the train arrives in Paris, the engine is red.
The Day of the Jackal (1973)
1 commented-on entry since 12 Dec '24, 05:47
Directed by: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Edward Fox, Michel Auclair, Terence Alexander, Alan Badel
Plot hole: An important plot point (in the book and the film) is that Charles Calthrop - thought to be the Jackal, at that stage - played some mysterious part in the 1961 assassination of Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of The Dominican Republic, and rumours of his involvement came to the attention of MI6 and Special Branch, leading to the accidental exposure of the Jackal's false passport. In fact there is no mystery at all about the assassination of Trujillo and there were no shadowy foreigners involved. It was organised by Trujillo's own senior aides, amongst them General Juan Tomás Díaz, Antonio de la Maza, Amado Garcia Guerroro and General Antonio Imbert Barrera. The gunman was later identified as Luis Aniama Tio. All the conspirators except Tio were arrested, tortured, and shot. There was no panicked evacuation of foreigners who were involved with Trujillo's regime, and no reason for them to be concerned - the government did not fall and Trujillo's brother Hector took over as President, ruling in a brutal and totalitarian manner for a further eight years. Any rumours of a mysterious Englishman would have been dismissed out of hand and would not have made it onto even the lowest level filing system anywhere in Whitehall.
Caron: You know, sir, what they'll do to you if you don't catch this man in time.
Lebel: I've been given a job to do, so we'll just have to do it.
Caron: But no crime has been committed yet, so where are we supposed to start looking for the criminal?
Lebel: We start by recognizing that, after De Gaulle, we are the two most powerful people in France.
Trivia: The Jackal demands $500,000 (US) to assassinate De Gaulle, which seems like a modest amount for such a dangerous job. However, when you take inflation into account that's the equivalent in 2024 money of over $5m. No wonder his putative employers are surprised.
Question: I have seen this movie many times, but one question continues to bother me: How did the Jackal plan to escape if he was successful in shooting the president? (He had already removed his disguise).
Answer: When the Jackal entered the parade area, he was disguised as an old army veteran, with one leg and false I.D. When the job was done he would walk out as a younger man with two legs and another set of of false I.D.
Correction: The train has had a change of engine en route. The original engine was diesel and arriving in Paris was electric. This would actually have happened but wasn't shown as it would serve no part in telling the story.
Yes but how many changes? It makes sense to change a locomotive from diesel to electric or vice versa if the railway infrastructure would require this change. On usual train routes the locmotive is changed once from diesel to electric or vice versa. On few ocasions it would be possible to change the locomotive from diesel to electric and then back to diesel so two changes on one train route in total. But it wouldn't make any sense at all to change the electric locmotive with another electric locomotive. This is a continuity error in the movie.
There are three shots of the train: one arriving at Tulle, one in transit, and finally one as the train arrives in Paris. In each of the three shots, the train is pulled by a different locomotive. Also, the train in the second shot is a different length and made up of different types of carriages than the train that arrives at Tulle. It's obvious that stock train footage was used and any attempt at continuity was disregarded.