The Day of the Jackal

Inherently suspenseless (history would give us several more years of assassination-target De Gaulle), this adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's bestseller yet provides an occasionally satisfying core of tension that owes less to Zinnemann's penchant for High Noon-ish clock-watching than to his schematic opposition of a cold, chameleonic lone killer (Fox, the OAS's hired pro) with a messy, though equally ruthless, bureaucracy of 'democratic' defence. Low on documentary conviction and political context, but an intriguing exercise in concealing the obvious.