hired hand day of the jackal

If the success of 1969's Easy Rider proved one thing, it's that Hollywood had no idea what it was doing. The studios were playing catch with an audience that was one step ahead of them and an accidental windfall like the Peter Fonda / Dennis Hopper counter culture phenomena wasn't going to happen every week. So they handed over the creative reigns to a generation anxious to do something different resulting in a watershed moment for American cinema in the early '70s. But sometimes, those responsible for such creative innovation got left behind.

For his directing debut, Peter Fonda probably couldn't have chosen a more risky project than The Hired Hand (1971). The low-budget affair wasn't financially precarious, but saddling up in a genre that his famous father pretty much owned was a far cry from his previous success as a pot-smoking, motorcycle-riding rebel. And, as an actor, Fonda pales in comparison, cutting the same lanky, dramatic figure, but with a nothing going on behind his eyes.

In the film, he travels with a trio of trail hands looking to escape the vagabond life and settle down. For Harry (Fonda), the opportunity has actually been there all along in the form of his wife, Hannah (Verna Bloom), and the daughter he abandoned ten years earlier. Upon his return to the family farm, Harry finds Hannah has become harsh and bitter with a reputation as the town slut. And the reunion becomes even more strained when Hannah focuses more attention on Arch (Warren Oates), Harry's best friend and traveling companion.

The Hired Hand feels stretched to the limits as a feature film, a point made even more obvious by a repeated series of art film montages that become an intentional visual motif...and nicely pad the running time. Fonda, as a director, is second-rate (he would only make two more forgettable films), but he surrounds himself with seasoned pros and up-and-coming talents. The first significant film shot by legendary cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, it's easy to spot the same elegiac tone he would apply to McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Heaven's Gate and other so-called revisionist westerns. But it's the performances of Bloom and Warren Oates that beef up the between-the-lines story, putting some real soul into a film that otherwise seems like a existential soul searching.

By 1973, the studios were close to regaining control. Film like The French Connection and The Godfather sported formulas that could be repeated - and sequalized. And while Jaws would offer salvation only two years later, Fred Zinnemann's snappy adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's hit international thriller, The Day of the Jackal, was pretty much a roadmap to getting Hollywood back on track.

Hired to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle by angry, but ineffective, French terrorists, the Jackal (Edward Fox) preps his job meticulously, arranging for a serious of false identities and disguises that will earn him his half-million dollar paycheck. But French intelligence gets wise to the plot, assigning their best detective, Claude Lebel (Michel Lonsdale) to the case. Label follows his instincts - and a series of accidental clues - to uncover the Jackal's identity, bouncing from city to city and country to country, while ferreting out a mole from within the French government. But the clock is ticking...and the Jackal always seems to stay one step ahead of his pursuers.

Without a true "name" in the cast, Zinnemann's film takes on a startling documentary feel that revels in arcane governmental bureaucracy and clever espionage gambits (the modern Bourne films are a nice modern equivalent). As the titular villain of the piece, Edward Fox is brilliantly cast against type, using his unassuming looks as a false front for a truly disturbing streak of ruthlessness. Meanwhile, Michel Lonsdale invests his equally unassuming French detective with an endearing amount of quirky brilliance. The film bounces back and forth between the concurrent storylines with a nimbleness that belies the almost 2 1/2 hour running time. If fact, the only fault with Zinnemann's film, which holds up just as well today, is that there's not quite enough insight into the collateral damage inflected on other characters along the way. But, I suppose, that's what novels are for, aren't they?