Didn’t feel sad when he was shot. But the scene at the end where it’s revealed we’ll never know who he was, and he is buried in an unmarked grave had more of an impact.
It’s a very well made film. My favorite moment
“I didn’t, I tapped all of them.”
I moved into the Jackal’s camp when he cinched his rifle to the tree with a belt and distributed watermelon seeds over a 10 foot radius. I moved out when that woman was killed just so he could get a nut.
I liked Fox in this and Force 10 from Navarone, not so much in Never Say Never. Free radicals… ugh.
Another vote for The Odessa File. “My name is Salomon Tauber…” Plus, there’s far too little of Maximillian Schell out there. Thank goodness for it and Judgement at Nuremberg.
I think The Fourth Protocol deserves inclusion there.
I’m not saying it’s not good (I liked it a lot better than The Dogs of War), but it was written long after that initial trio of books.
Or, if you like early Forsyth, check out some of his contemporaries.
Eye of the Needle - Ken Follett
Triple - Ken Follett
The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett
Man on Fire - A.J. Quinnell
The Mahdi - A.J. Quinnell
Snap Shot - A.J. Quinnell
The Eiger Sanction - Trevanian
The Eagle Has Landed - Jack Higgins
Storm Warning - Jack Higgins
Unfortunately it appears to be the rule that authors who write taut thrillers in their early career seem to get more wordy and indulgent as time goes by.
Just in time for Christmas, Forsyth’s The Shepherd is a good, guy-friendly holiday read.
Or go Cold War with John le Carré’s series employing master spy George Smiley.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Honourable Schoolboy, and
Smiley’s People
If you considered The Day of the Jackal (1973) to be above average to excellent, then by all means disregard the attempt at an “update” known as The Jackal (1997) which is, to be charitable, poor by comparison. One of the worst remakes of a classic that I can point to.
I saw it as a kid, when it first came out, long before I had any idea about the existence of Day of the Jackal.
“Caper” movies and espionage/intrigue movies seem to be the genre that is most prone to remakes (and they’re always terrible.) Why is this?
I started reading these spy novels in my early teens, about 1980 or so. I still love a good spy thriller, but these books are where I started.
I’ll second Little Nemo, and add The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum. I didn’t like the followups. And don’t worry if you have seen the movie - it’s relationship to the book is fleeting. The original reflects a completely different geopolitical situation and people.
and lieu has good suggestions, too. I think I enjoyed all the Le Carre books. Oh, and the new Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy movie is really excellent. And as for The Spy Who Came In From the Cold - classic in both book and film (Richard Burton as the lead). Le Carre books have been pretty well adapted to film, although The Little Drummer Girl wasn’t as good as the others.
Len Deighton, The Ipcress File. Filmed with Michael Caine as Harry Palmer.
And Forsythe The Fourth Protocol is a good tense read, too. Another good film, with Michael Caine as a worldweary spy in a murky world of cross and double cross.
Si (who is probably going to hit Amazon shortly to see if these are available on Kindle yet)
In addition to *The Fourth Protocol *I also enjoyed The Devil’s Alternative.
Actually, if you want some good thriller stuff contemporary with Forsyth’s early three novels, there’s always Forsyth himself. He wrote several short stories at the time that were collected in the volume No Comebacks. Several of the stories were dramatized on audio (The Careful Man, Money with Menaces), and The Careful Man was adapted as a teleplay that I used to have on tape, until someone taped over it.
Nor do I mean to slight Forsyth’s otther stuff. I loved The Devil’s Alternative and The Fourth Protocol. I have read all of his books, and love them all except for The Phantom in Manhattan, his ill-advised attempt to write a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera.
A note for everyone who ever tries this, what shows up in the rollover or not is based on the character count, not line count. 8 empty lines is the equivalent of 8 characters, not eight sentences.
For example, would work better.
The Emperor, the first story in that book (if I got the name right), is my all-time favorite short story.
I never understood the ending of that book or film. 
I did love the bit, though,
[spoiler]when Caine is briefing the SAS team.
John Preston: Have they told you anything?
Captain Lyndhurst: Just that he’s a terrorist.
John Preston: Oh, he’s more than just a terrorist. He is a top Soviet agent, a pro.
Captain Lyndhurst: Is he alone?
John Preston: Maybe there’s a woman in there. He’s armed with a bomb.
Captain Lyndhurst: How big a bomb?
John Preston: Atomic bomb.
everyone stops arranging their gear and stares at him[/spoiler]
Great flick. One thing that made it especially good, for me anyway, is that it makes you root for both sides.
Why is everyone spoilering for a movie that is decades old?
I have lived my reading and listening life in chronic fear that when I read a new author I love (or hear a new CD I love), nothing else they make will live up to it. I’m not sure where that came from, but I can tell you where it did NOT come from: The Odessa File. Completely different from DotJ, but a knockout from the opening scene where the narrator describes hearing about JFK’s assassination. Such great fun and writing.
Many of Deighton’s books are very enjoyable. The Bernard Samson mega-series was starting to be a really excellent set of books, but East Germany and the USSR fell to pieces while he was in the middle, and he never caught stride again.
I have no idea.
The fact that it’s old does not negate the importance of my spoiler. I can’t believe anyone would think otherwise. We’re not talking about It’s A Wonderful Life here, or some other movie with extreme popularity and cultural significance. We’re talking about a cult film that is obscure to probably the majority of movie-watching people currently alive.
There are still plenty of people who have not seen the film, and might want to do so. Why should it be ruined for them?