The Day of the Jackal

This takes place in 1962 France with General Charles de Gaulle.

OAS, a group of extremists, wanting to kill General de Gaulle for freeing Algeria, granting them independence.

One of the OAS' attempts at assassination fails and all who were caught, are tried and found guilty, sentenced to death.

The surviving members realize they need to hire an outside guy for the job, not someone from France but a foreigner. 

So they hire ‘the jackal’ to do the deed for half a million dollars. He seems to be from Britain but they are never sure.

It was interesting to follow where he goes and how he goes about preparing to do the deed as this movie seems to be mostly about how the guy prepares and scouts the area where he is thinking of doing it.

The government hires their best detective to find the jackal and then the subsequent detective work of the detective trying to figure out who he is and where is at takes on half of the movie.

This movie is a bit slow but interesting how much the jackal puts into the preparation and becomes more of a just missed by minutes type of movie that starts to bring you to the edge of your seat.

All of their accents seem a bit off and there is some sexual situations and nudity. 

I enjoyed the movie as it was intriguing. 

A bit more about Charles de Gaulle on Wikipedia:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle

More about: The Day of the Jackal

Where The Boys Are

This is about spring break in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and the crazy relationships and situations that can happen.

It is narrated in the beginning to set the scene and tell you what is about to happen and what you are about to watch.

It stars Connie Francis who sings the title song and a few other songs during the movie. Also stars Dolores Hart, Yvette Mimieux, Barbara Nichols, George Hamilton (before his tan!), Chill Wills as the chief of police, Frank Gorshin (who played The Riddler in the old Batman tv series) as a kooky jazz player that ends up falling for Connie Francis' character, although you don't get to see much of that unfortunately as I think that could have been really funny to have expanded on that.
Also has Jim Hutton (Timothy Hutton's father) and Paula Prentiss who both were paired together in a few other movies. 

This 1960 movie starts out showing a view of Fort Lauderdale and then flashes you back to a midwestern all girl college showing a  blizzard of snow! Not unlike what seems to be happening as of late at what normally would have been spring break time. 

One girl (Dolores Hart) is outspoken about sex and shocking the old fashioned teachings in what seems like during an interpersonal relationship class that tiptoes around about how young girls and boys should act or not act, especially during spring break or when kept away from the opposite sex. The class was very proper and old fashioned and Hart's character calls it right out.

The four girlfriends take a road trip down to Ft. Lauderdale for spring break and while driving down, they spot a guy on the side of the road all sad with a sign hitchhiking to FL and they pick him up!

There are a lot of character actors who appear in this movie that have been in quite a few other movies.

Hotel concierge, waiter...see if you can spot them!

The original four let two more girls stay with them who can’t afford the room rate as they try to save money to afford to stay there and the room fills up with other girls along the way during the course of the movie.

Chill Wills is the chief of police which is just comical in of itself. He gives a speech that is just funny to prep the police officers for the spring break kids and the craziness that ensues.

 The hitchhiker (Jim Hutton) asks if the one girl (Paula Prentiss) is a "good girl" and when she says yes, he is disappointed as he is looking to have sex of course. 

The whole movie is about how each girl meets a guy and the different type of situations that can occur. Some of this was so familiar to me when I was in tech school in the Air Force and can imagine spring break is a lot like this even today.

Although the clothes and styles and cars have changed, not to mention prices, but the situations and relationships are still pretty much the same of what you can encounter. 

There is a situation in this movie that is downplayed a bit as far as the consequences go. Definitely more adult and not really a movie for kids at all.  You don't really see anything sexual, but it leaves it up to your mind to know what happened to the one girl. This shows what the mindset was back in 1960 as well when it comes to this sort of thing. 

It was a funny movie until the end and it definitely took a very downward turn and left you feeling sad. A sadness that remained and overshadowed the nice situations and relationships of the others. It's worth seeing if only for the great character actors and Frank Gorshin is hysterical and just kooky as he can be.

A Cry in the Dark

A Cry In The Dark

Starring: Meryl Streep and Sam Neill

Sam is a minister with the Seventh Day Adventist in Queensland, Australia.
He and Meryl are very young in this movie.

Lots of bad language and muffled voices. You had to really strain to hear and understand as there were a lot of strong accents and multiple conversations going on at the same time where people are talking over the other.

Family of five go exploring and camping in the Northern Territory in Australia at Ayers Rock, one of the biggest rocks in the world with their 3 children, the youngest of which is a new a few months old baby.




Throughout the area, there are dingos coming closer to the camp where everyone is at, become more and more bold and taking scraps that are thrown to them by the campers as people feed them and take pictures of them.

One evening Meryl puts the baby to sleep in an open tent and goes to get something and return only to see a dingo coming out of the tent shaking it's head and runs off as she rushes in to see the baby is gone and everyone believes the dingo took her baby.

One lady sees blood in the tent and everyone goes on the hunt for the baby and the dingo.
They can't find it but only see a torn blanket and blood on that too.



After an exhaustive search, people try to figure out how it happened, if it happened and if a dingo could have really taken the baby. Press joins in and begin to hound Neill and Streep. The forensics then begin to analyze the found clothes etc and the movies makes you wonder what really happened?

A quote from the movie: "The dingo at your baby!" was used in the show, Seinfeld.

This movie was ok.
It drags and gets ridiculous at times.
I can only imagine the struggle the family went through.
It is awesome to see Streep and Neill so young and they of course were great.


This was based on a real story back in 1980.