“Men Who Killed Gandhi” was first published in 1978. It is like a research work by the author where he tries to unearth the facts about Gandhi’s assassination. Recently, the book has been released with new documents, and rare pictures that leave the readers amused. Interesting archival records include copies of the Air-India tickets used by Godse and Apte to make the trip from Bombay to Delhi and back for the assassination and even their bills at Hotel Marina in Connaught Place where they stayed while carrying out their mission.

It is an informative book about historical facts but it reads like a thriller about a well-laid murder plan. It traces the whole events (partition of India, riots, Gandhi’s fast) leading to the assassination and the trial at Red Fort afterwards. The book tries not to take a side at all – which is a good thing provided the fact that neither of them (Gandhi or Godse) was justified. If Gandhi was not justified to go on hunger strike for releasing 55 crores to Pakistan while India was at war with them, Godse was equally not justified to kill somebody (and that somebody in this case was Mahatma Gandhi). The book states that both Godse and Apte were pledged to the cause of an independent and undivided India. And they held Gandhi liable for India’s division.

The book also points out the leniency with which police handled the events leading to Gandhi’s murder (including a failed bomb attack only two weeks ago). As per the author, if the police would have been fast enough (and would have cut through their internal egos/red-tapism) they would have surely caught all these persons earlier enough to avoid the assassination. On the other hand, book also points out the childish ways of the murders and their co-accused, how on each step they left some witnesses behind to identify them and bring them to justice. It also points out that how Gandhi was all together alienated from the realities of divided India and public sentiments during last days of his life – and paid with his life for that.

The US military involvement in Vietnam was an experience that even decades later is recalled as a phase to avoid. Every military engagement by the US is vetted to see that the US should not get involved the same way that it got involved in Vietnam. The US military had a humiliating defeat when it was forced to retreat from Vietnam, and did not get its true spirit back till the defeat of Saddam Hussain in the First Gulf Way in 1991. The US dogma (including any required military effort) to beat back the ascendancy of Communism around the world is seen as the primary reason for the involvement in the Vietnam War. Given the impact of the Vietnam War on the US psyche during the 1970’s and after, it was natural to expect many many movies to be made on the subject, and some great movies have been made.

Some of the movies have been ‘Good morning Vietnam’, ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘The Deer Hunter’, ‘Full Metal Jacket’, ‘Forrest Gump’, etc. A lot of these movies have been dark movies, such as ‘Apocalypse Now’, a very dark portrayal of the madness of war and what such a war does to the people involved. Similarly, Platoon is a dark depiction of war, of the changes wrought in the innocent young men who went to war, and whom the war turned into cynical, moody and mentally wrought people. A whole generation of young men were taken from their families, drafted into the war, and turned into hard, battle weary men. Platoon takes a glimpse of what war life must be for a few of these young men. Oliver Stone, who served as an American soldier in war, takes his experiences and creates his most famous and acclaimed movie. This is the movie that made Stone’s reputation.
The movie made an equally good impression on a large section of the critics, and also got a good share of the Oscars, winning 4, and getting nominated for others.
Won: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound
Nominated: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Tom Berenger), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Willem Dafoe), Best Cinematography and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
At the time of release, the Vietnam War had been over for more than a decade, and a new generation of Americans were not so aware of the mood of the country in the late 60’s and 70’s. At such a time, the release of such a movie that portrayed the war as a brutal war that sapped the human spirit, and portrayed the impact on individual members of the platoon would have been akin to a shocking reminder of what the war must have been like. In addition, the movie did not present things in stark black and white, with a large amount of moral ambiguity through the movie. Even the protagonist, a person who does not sway too much from the right side, eventually kills in cold blood, not during a conflict, and out of hate. Further, the depiction of the massacre in a village, modeled after the ‘My Lai’ village massacre during the Vietnam War is meant to shock.
The movie takes Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), a young upper middle-class American dropping out of college to join the war because he feels that there is an unfair policy where rich kids are getting deferment to join the war because of their education, while poorer background young men are being sent to join the war. However, any romanticism of the war is soon lost in the actual combat zone, whether due to the mundaneness of digging foxholes or in an actual conflict situation (where a fellow soldier dies in the cross-fire). The movie also shows the contrasting impact of the war on people with the depiction of 2 Sergeants, Sgt. Elias and Staff Sgt. Barnes. Elias (William Dafoe in an Oscar nominated role) is a squad leader who has not been corrupted by the war and maintains his essential humanity. He almost dies a death at the hands of his own countrymen when he is shot by Barnes (Tom Berenger) in the middle of battle, eventually being killed by the Vietnamese while fleeing from them in a wounded state. Barnes himself is shot by Taylor after a major combat action in revenge for the killing of Elias. Barnes is an example of what human being can become who cracks under the pressure of war and goes to the dark side. Another major highlight of the movie is the dependence of soldiers on good leadership with the platoon having an inept leadership in the form of Lt. Wolfe (apparently Lt. Wolfe is used in US army training as an example of how not to command).

Psycho (released in 1960) was arguably Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous movie, and acknowledged as one of the best movies of all times. The movie set new standards in the field of horror movies, something that slasher movies later have found it difficult to emulate. This was also a movie that Alfred Hitchcock wanted to use to establish his reputation, especially when ‘Vertigo’ had failed 2 years earlier (neither the critics nor the audience gave it much of a reception); and the story of a murderer (a novel by Peter Bloch) was something that appealed to him. He had not made such a movie in the past, although he had made his name in suspense, and the making of a movie of the genre of a psychotic murderer would be a different movie.

To that extent, the story of Psycho was something that Hitchcock guarded to a very high degree. Even the film rights to the novel were bought under a different name so that viewers would not guess the twists in the story. This quest for secrecy manifested itself in several different ways. Hitchcock forbade most promotion on the usual media - television, radio, and print interviews so that there was no fear of revealing the truth. In addition, critics were not allowed the usual private screenings, but had to see the movie with the general public, so that the plot remained secret (even though preventing the critics from their screenings might cause reviews to be not so positive).
The movie also struggled on a different front. The studio for which Hitchcock was supposed to make another movie, Paramount, was not happy with the script or with the thought of Hitchcock making this movie. They did not believe that the script was suitable for a movie, and in fact, such a movie was essentially a pet peeve for Hitchcock. Accordingly, his usual budget was denied, causing Hitchcock to raise money on his own and cut costs. He hired his regular staff, managed to get the lead star Janet Leigh for much less than her regular fee; the overall budget was less than a million dollars.
The movie was reviewed poorly by critics, but turned out to be a major commercial success, earning some $32 million overall. Since the movie was produced by Hitchcock’s company, his share of the profits was much greater than one would have expected otherwise. The success of the movie led critics to change their views, do a re-review, and the movie earned a total of 4 Oscar nominations.
The movie is a gripping psycho drama, with a shower murder scene that is one of the most famous scenes ever; this scene has been copied and parodied many times. There has been countless research done over the decades to evaluate as to why the scene has had such an impact to users; as an aside, it has been popular lore that the scene impacted the actress Janet Leigh so much that she found it difficult to take a shower after that.
The movie is set in a out-of-the-way motel called Bates motel. It is run by the young man called Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who lives with his ailing mother. And who arrives to this motel ? The lady on the run, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). She is in love with Sam Loomis (John Gavin), but both of them do not have much money. They are in dire need of money since Sam is in debt and also has alimony payments to an wx-wife that are ongoing. Marion steals $40,000 from the office in Phoenix, Arizona that she works in (she is asked to deposit the money in the bank, but she runs off with the money), and wants to drive to the town in California where Sam works.
She is suspicious, wondering about whether the police is after her; in this state, she even changes her car to try to throw pursuers off her track. In this state, she finds a motel on the way, and is persuaded to stay there. She finds Norman Bates a bit strange, but nothing prepares her for her end. When she is showering in her motel room, an apparently elderly woman attacks her and is stabbed to death (with a powerful musical score playing in the background).
Norman finds the corpse of Marion, and in order to protect his mother, he dumps Marion and all her belongings (including the car) into a nearby swamp. However, it is not the end; a private detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam) is hired to find Norman. He manages to find the Bates motel, and starts to question Norman who gets all nervous. He meets the same end as Marion, being slashed to death by Norman’s mother after being pushed down the stairs. When Milton does not report back, Marion’s mother Lila and Sam get concerned and contact the sheriff. When the sheriff is told about Norman’s mother, he is surprised since Norman’s mother had died 10 years back.
Sam and Lila investigate further, and slip into the motel. They find a slip of paper talking about the money that Marion was carrying ($40,000), and so decide to confront Norman’s mother. Lila is tasked with talking to the mother, while Sam would divert Norman. However, Norman soon has a fight with Sam and knocks him out; Lila is shocked when she discovers the preserved body of Norman’s mother; and the secret is out - Norman is wearing his mother’s clothes when he comes with a knife to kill Lila. Sam arrives just in time and knocks Norman out.
In the end, a psychiatrist explains the truth; Norman and his mother lived together with no one else. So when Norman’s mother took a lover, Norman killed them both, and then tried to erase the guilt by preserving her body, and acting as her (in a classic case of split personality). In this reverse state, the split personality is jealous of any woman to whom Norman comes in touch with, and kills such a women. His psychosis prevents him from realizing the enormity of his crimes. Norman lands up in a cell, his mind dominated by his mother. In this alter ego, she believes that she is harmless and Normal is responsible for her current state.

Asimov wrote almost all his science fiction with stories geared to the future. In some of them, his ideas fail spectacularly after a period of time (his concept of one giant computer and MultiVac), but it is his stories of the evolution of a society of a future that is much more realistic, and it would be very much possible to look a thousand years down and find a resemblance to the society that he has created. Asimov wrote some of his greatest works when detailing the interaction of humans in the future, and about the society that got developed. The Caves of Steel is a combination of 2 distinct ideas - one is about the development of human society, and the other is about the development of robotics as an ever present strain. It is incredible to read his future novels and see how he almost single-handedly develops the concept of robots as an integral part of society (whether liked or hated), as well as develops the ethical and moral dilemmas concerning robots.

It is in the depiction of the positronic brain being the base for the development of the truly thinking robot that was a great spark and made these novels special. A positronic humanoid robot is the evolution of robotics - strong like all robots, but capable of independent thought and action, and yet bound by another of Asimov’s great contribution to the field of making robotics a much more human friendly science (The three Laws of Robotics that form the basis for all robotic thought and action).
The Caves of Steel also develops 2 characters who play a role in many of Asimov’s future novels - the plainclothes detective Elijah Baley, and the humanoid robot R. Daneel Olivaw (who went to star in many of the other robots and foundation novels). This is the first novel in which they start working together, with Eijah being hesitant because of the taboos against robots in the society on earth at that point of time. It is not the best in the series, far from it, but it is worth reading because it is legitimately the first one in an incredible series (this does not mean that the novel is badly written, but that The Naked Sun is a better written work).
These 2 books (The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun) are also different from the others because these are stories set in the future with a very strong focus on detective work and investigation, the society forms more of a backdrop. The Caves of Steel actually refers to the vast cities on which a seething humanity, 8 billion strong lives. These are vast underground cities in which people hardly ever get a chance to see the sun, and in fact almost all of them would get disoriented and shaken on seeing the sun. As a contrast, human settlers on other worlds (50 of them) are a well settled financially dominant society, enjoying a much longer life and having a robot dominated life, with these robots making their life comfortable. Earth is dominated by these settlers (called Spacers) in terms of their power (although most Spacers would be uncomfortable being near the humans on earth).
With such a skewed power play, one of the prominent Spacers on earth is killed, and earth could face a major problem from the spacers unless the culprit is found. Finding the culprit is a thankless task, since failure could spell severe trouble for the detective incharge, and to Elijah falls the task of doing the investigation. In addition, he gets a Spacer to be his partner in the investigation, but this is not a normal spacer. This is an expensive state of the art humanoid robot, and Elijah has to overcome his own biases against robots, and at the same time, prevent Daneel from getting harmed by other humans during the investigation. Can he pull this off ?

The Bourne Identity is an extremely famous novel (although it never was made into a good movie - even the movie of the same name starring Matt Damon changed the story and somehow did not appeal to Ludlum fans). The Bourne Identity has been acknowledged as one of the better spy novels of all time (published in 1980). The concept of a man, who does not know who he is, but knows for sure that he was somebody whom people are hunting in a very determined manner, and who keeps on running and running in order to find out who he is (at the same time, running away from his pursuers) makes for a very fascinating story. Throw in the US Government agencies, throw in Carlos the Jackal, and throw in a romance, and you get a very gripping book.

The first in a series of 3 written by Robert Ludlum (the others being The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum) and 2 more books in the same series written by Eric Van Lustbader written after Ludlum’s death, you should ideally read the whole series and then you will admire the way that Robert Ludlum spins a fast-paced thriller.
The book starts with a man picked up from the Mediterranean Sea by a fishing boat and brought to a local doctor, a former good doctor, but now mostly a drunk. His body has many bullets in it, and in order to save him, the doctor gives up his drink for some time, and then saves him. It takes some time to recover, but the patient finally recovers. He soon discovers that he has amnesia, does not remember who he is, but there are some interesting circumstances around him - he has had signs of plastic surgery, and also surgically implanted in his body is a microfilm with the details of a Swiss account with 4 million dollars. Soon the patient also discovers that he has the instinct of a skilled fighter, when he has a fight with a local; as a result of this fight, he needs to leave fight.
He eventually gets to the Swiss Bank in Zurich, and soon discovers a name, Jason Bourne. This may or may not be his name, but he has to struggle when people at the bank know who he is, when he himself does not know who he his. And from this time, he is now a marked men when people get to know that he is alive. He struggles to stay away from them, and soon he takes a woman hostage, Marie St Jacques. He is now thoroughly enmeshed in a struggle with people (who may be from the famous Carlos the Jackal); he also has to face the possibility that he may be himself an assassin. The circumstances seem to point out that. But he also shows a very positive side to his character when he saves Marie after she is abducted and marked for killing.
As the plot progresses, you get to know more facts. He is / was an agent of the US Government, but then suddenly disappears, and then his prints appear at a location where some US agents are killed. Based on medical advice, the US now believes that he has turned hostile and needs to be hunted down. How can he stay one step ahead of his pursuers and make his former controllers believe that he did not turn, but instead lost his memory ? Read the novel to find out.

On the Waterfront is a movie that is more than 50 years old now, but it can still make an impact. The movie was an incredible career booster for Marlon Brando, giving him a massive reputation in the Oscar-winning role of a man who was just passing through life as a ‘bum’, being the lackey of a mob boss in the union, until a couple of deaths and the inspiring words of a priest and the sister of one of the ones killed caused his conscience to slowly come back to life and get him to do the right thing. The movie portrays an end full of optimism, with the breaking of the control of the mob boss who controlled the union of longshoremen. The whole situation was that of exploitation of the dock workers, and corruption and use of force in order to retain the control of the boss.

This movie had a certain amount of history in terms of reasons for it being made. The movie was directed by Elia Kazan; he was controversial because he had reported names of possible communists in the American film industry in 1952 (2 years before the making of this movie) to the House Un-American Activities Commission, and he had been criticized for this action. The release of a movie in which the hero breaks the might of a mighty corrupt and evil authority by ’squealing’ / ‘telling the truth’ before a Government commission investigating the waterfront was seen as an answer to the claims made earlier against Kazan that he was a squealer.
Around the period in which the movie was made, the scene of the waterfront was indeed a place of oppression in which ordinary workers had no dignity, only those got jobs whom the boss of the union decided or were in his favor, and there was a systematic exploitation of these workers. The movie was actually based on a Pulitzer Prize winning series of 24 articles in 1949 in the New York Sun by reporter Malcolm Johnson called ‘Crime on the Waterfront’. The article was a harsh expose on the scene on the waterfront, detailing bribery, corruption, payoffs, kickbacks to union officials, theft, murder and a generally oppressive culture.
The movie was seen as such a striking movie with its portrayal of the activities on the waterfront, a great melodrama, and an incredible performance by Marlon Brando that it was nominated for a total of 12 nominations and won 8 nominations, putting it at a very pedestral in terms of awards won:
* Best Actor - Marlon Brando
* Best Picture - Sam Spiegel, producer
* Best Supporting Actress - Eva Marie Saint
* Best Art Direction - Set Decoration, Black-and-White - Richard Day
* Best Cinematography, Black-and-White - Boris Kaufman
* Directing - Elia Kazan
* Film Editing - Gene Milford
* Writing, Story and Screenplay - Budd Schulberg
Nominations that did not win
* Best Supporting Actor - Lee J. Cobb
* Best Supporting Actor - Karl Malden
* Best Supporting Actor - Rod Steiger
* Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture - Leonard Bernstein

The movie is about a former boxer Terry Malloy who is somewhat slow-witted. He manages to survive by being the odd job man for the union boss Johnny Friendly. His brother Charles Malloy, is the lawyer for Johnny Friendly. He is just content doing jobs given to him by the union boss and for his pleasure, rears pigeons. The chief property of the union is that no information is to be given to outsiders about anything, a policy of D n D (Deaf and Dumb) - similar to the mafia code of omerta. But, another young dock worker is about to report whatever he knows to an investigating committee, and this trouble-maker needs to be eliminated. Terry is used to call him, and then this young worker Joey is then thrown off a roof by 2 of the boss’s henchmen. This horrified Terry, since he is the conduit through which Joey was called to his death.
Slowly things start changing due to the impact of a local priest who is trying to rouse the workers from their lethargy; and more so due to a slowly forming attraction between Terry and Edie (sister of the dead Joey). Both Friendly and Charles see this change starting to happen in Terry, but are unable to stop him. Over a period of time, Terry starts to feel his conscience starts to awaken and he starts to shrug off his sluggish nature. He in fact almost breaks with his brother by blaming him for the way his life had turned out (his brother had asked him to throw a match against another boxer and his life had taken a turn for the worse after that).
Towards the end, his brother is killed by Friendly because of being unable to prevent Terry from giving tetimony, and Terry goes ahead and implicated Friendly in the death of Joey. In a bruising scene after that on the waterfront, Terry fights Friendly and then his henchmen, and gets badly beaten up. However, he has the ultimate triumph when the other workers all line up behind him and throw off the fear of the union boss.

What an unusual name, you might wonder. After all, how easy is it for a movie to get named something like ‘The usual suspects’ ? Well, if you have seen Casablanca, then you should stop wondering. In the end, when the policeman wants to save the resistance fighter (Humphrey Bogart), he instead tells his men to round up ‘the usual suspects’ (actually the name of the movie is based on a column in Spy magazine called ‘The Usual Suspects’). Besides the unusual name, the movie is also regarded as a neo-noir film. To add to the myth around this movie, it was shot on a $6 million budget and released in 1995 in a few theatres, but gained publicity through word of mouth and good reviews, and was then released in a much wider way. The movie also picked up 2 academy awards, further adding to the fame of the movie. As always while making of such iconic movies, the making of the movie went through many twists and turns in terms of getting the budget, getting the actors, and so on. But it did get made, and turned out to earn $24 million.

The movie was nominated for 2 Oscars, and won both. The awards were:
* Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Kevin Spacey
* Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen - Christopher McQuarrie
It was nominated and won other awards such as BAFTA. Get the list here.
The movie had a good line up, with the following line-up:
* Kevin Pollak (played Todd Hockney)
* Kevin Spacey (Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint) - An award winning role
* Benicio Del Toro (Fred Fenster)
* Gabriel Byrne (Dean Keaton)
* Stephen Baldwin (Michael McManus)
These were the 5 members of the gang, seemingly being manipulated behind the scenes by a mega-criminal, a ruthless man. But is the truth what it seems like ? The movie works at different levels, with story being told in flashes; with so many twists and turns. You start with a story, being told cleverly, but are never very sure about what is true or not. Miss parts of the movie, and you may not be able to identify what is going on in the movie when you get back ! The Usual Suspects is a gripping story, very cleverly told (although you will find critics who are dismissive of a movie that seems too clever). There is a good chance that you will start reading every gesture, every glance, and the dialogues to figure out where the story is going. And then the ending. What a story !
The central theme of the movie is one of detection: Who is the criminal mastermind Kyser Söze ? This is the character who is the mover behind the scenes, who manipulates a group of criminals like puppets on a chain, and about whom nobody really knows as to who he is.
Imagine a squad of policemen who reach a boat on a pier, and find a mini-battle has happened, with 27 people dead and a massive amount of heroin found. The only 2 wounded survivors are a Hungarian who fears a mass-killing master criminal known as “Keyser Söze”, who was in the boat killing people. And the other survivor is Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey), who agrees to cooperate with the police in return for immunity. And this is the guts of the movie !
Kint and 4 others were earlier arrested and taken to a police line-up (with ‘the usual suspects’ being arrested); incensed over this arrest, they decide to strike back and plan a major robbery that will also implicate the corrupt police officers in the NYPD. The reluctant members are convinced, and the robbery happens without a hitch, and they travel to California to peddle the goods to a fence called Redfoot.
There, they are persuaded to commit another robbery that goes wrong, and they are forced to kill Saul Berg, a purported jewel smuggler and his bodyguards. And what do they end up with ? Not the reported cash and jewelery, instead heroin. When they confront Redfoot, they realize that the orders came from a lawyer called Kobayashi (Postlethwaite), who is in turn working for “Keyser Söze”, something that scares them because of his background and supposed ruthless nature.
The lawyer has proof of their activities, and blackmails them into doing another job for Keyser Söze, the destruction of cargo of a rival coming into the port. And then Kint starts to explain to the police who exactly Keyser Söze is (as explained to him by his fellow criminals); a superman of the criminal world, a man so ruthless that when his family is threatened, he first kills his family and then carries on a vicious vendetta against his rivals and all their known people; this done, he vanishes and now only works through henchmen. They try to fight back after one of their own is killed, but back down when facing the ruthless nature of the lawyer and his apparent boss.
The criminals attack the boat of Keyser’s rivals, and a major battle starts; Kint is held back to be able to escape and report in case the others do not survive; but things start to go haywire. There is no cocaine on the boat, people are killed who the criminals have not yet attacked, and then the remaining gang members are seemingly killed by Keyser Söze. The police seem to believe that Keaton was actually Keyser Söze, and Kint supports this theory. He gets bail, leaves; leaving behind policemen who slowly start to discover that the story that they have been told is actually bull. The police sketch of Keyser Söze is very close to Kint, but it is too late. He has disappeared in front of their eyes.

Thrillers make even more riveting reading when they are based on historical happenings. This novel is based on a combination of 2 important events. Charles De Gaulle was probably the most important leader of France in the past century, seen as the helsman who would make France strong. On the other story, the Algerian question was an important one. Algeria wanted freedom from France, with an insurgency happening in Algeria, and an important section of the French wanting to stamp out this insurgency and ensure that Algeria remains with the French. And then De Gaulle shocked the nation by announcing that Algeria would get independence. Such a news was so shocking for the right-wing hardliners that an organization called the OAS (Organisation de l’armée secrète or Secret Armed Organization) attempted to assassinate De Gaulle in order to stop the granting of independence to Algeria.
The novel takes as the starting point, an actual attempt on De Gaulle’s life, spear-headed by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry on the 22nd of August, 1962 in a suburb of Paris called Petit-Clamart. The attempt failed, even though a massive number of bullets were fired. The novel starts from this point, and moves onto the realm of fiction, with the OAS hiring a skilled assassin who comes close to actually shooting De Gaulle, thwarted only by a extremely skilled police detective who is chasing him.

The interesting part is, all of this would have been in secret, so if any such attempt had actually been carried out, it would probably have remained in top secret. The French would have refused to make information public about an attempt that almost succeeded, it would have also made the target seem attainable. The novel, when it came out in 1971, was widely praised for its detail, for the level of research that seems to have been carried out, and is still known as a great piece of fiction.
It is also somewhat infamous, since some of the more infamous people have been seemingly inspired by it. For example,
* A copy of the Hebrew translation of The Day of the Jackal was found in possession of Yigal Amir, the extreme-right militant who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995.
* Real-life terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez was nicknamed “Carlos the Jackal” by the press in reference to the novel, which was found in what was assumed to be his bag (but wasn’t). Nevertheless, the nickname stuck.
* Recent assassin Vladimir Arutinian, who attempted to kill US President George W. Bush during his 2005 visit to the country of Georgia, was an obsessive reader of the novel and kept an annotated version of it during his planning for the assassination.
Day of the Jackal is a fast paced thriller, taut, keeps one wanting to continue reading. You also get a great insight of how such a police chase works, where the police has to find such a plot, and then to identify the person who is the plot ring-leader, all in time so as to prevent the plot from getting executed.
The novel is about the hunt for such an assassin, a skilled person who was capable of shooting his target when the target was traveling at high speed, through a very small window of opportunity. The assassin meets with the ring-leaders in Vienna, and then starts his planning, including manufacturing his multiple identities and disguises. French intelligence soon become aware of this plan, and Inspector Claude Lebel is assigned the task of defeating the Jackal. And Lebel starts his effort, calling in his old boys network, and getting a lot of help from the British; enough to close in on the Jackal, but he evades capture as he keeps on getting inside information.
And then the police realize an important event is coming up: Liberation Day, on the 25th of August, commemorating the liberation of Paris in World War II. This is not something that De Gaulle will avoid, and makes an ideal hunting spot for the Jackal. The Jackal manages to avoid the dragnet, using first a woman, and then another man for help, killing them as he leaves them. In a remarkable disguise as a war veteran, the Jackal manages to get past the police barricades and into position where he can put General De Gaulle in his cross-hairs. Lebel is following close behind, but not close enough to prevent the Jackal from taking a shot. What saves De Gaulle is the French custom of kissing both cheeks, and the time gives enough time to Lebel to arrive at the scene. The Jackal kills the policeman along with Lebel, but in the short time-off between Lebel and the Jackal where they recognize each other, Lebel manages to kill the Jackal using a machine-pistol; the only thing that the public know is that a vehicle back-fired producing the noise similar to the machine gun.
However, in the end, there is an element of surprise. The British gentleman who was suspected of being the Jackal, Charles Calthrop, re-appears after a fishing trip, so no one really knows who the Jackal was. And so it ends, with a lonely funeral for the Jackal, attended only by Lebel. A great novel by Frederick Forsyth.

Goodfellas is seen as an iconic movie, taking the role of a mafia man (without getting into the role of a mafia boss as in Gangster) through 30 years of his file, from a childhood yearning to be a man of power and money, to a final stage of obscurity in the Witness Protection Program, a man hidden by the Government to keep him safe from former companions (who have been betrayed). After all, in the mafia, the code of silence, ‘omerta’ is one of the most powerful weapons and breaking that is liable to lead to expulsion and enmity (and enmity with the mafia means death).
The number of Italian-Americans involved in the mafia is a very small fraction of the US, but the influence on the crime scene, and the level of intrigue in knowing more about their criminal activities has always had a very strong attraction for the US movie market and for audiences (and hence the large number of successful movies detailing various elements of the mafia). Goodfellas is probably one of the best in the league, and has been counted as among the top 100 movies ever made.

The movie is based on a true story, about a small-time gangster of Irish-Sicilian origin (and hence not a true Sicilian, and hence never be able to be a ‘made’ member of the mafia. Unless you were a pure-blood Sicilian, you could never be a full member) called Henry Hill. Eventually Henry reached a situation where he squealed on his friends (or in legal parlance, he helped the police and FBI break up an organized crime gang) and had to be put in the Witness Protection Program for his own safety. This real life story was captured in Pileggi’s 1985 non-fictional book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family.
Goodfellas depended on the acting capabilities of a few prime actors:
Robert De Niro playing Jimmy Conway
Joe Pesci playing Tommy DeVito
Ray Liotta playing Henry Hill
Lorraine Bracco playing Karen Hill
Paul Sorvino playing Paul Cicero
And, luckily for the movie, and for us, these actors delivered. To portray a good mafia movie, there has be to a certain inherent level of violence shown both in actual physical violence as well as being able to display a force through acting and dialogues, and it all seems to have come together. Goodfellas garnered 6 Oscar nominations in all (Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay). It must not have clicked with the voters though, since it was able to get only one Oscar - Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Joe Pesci.
In a Italian-American neighborhood in the 1950’s, mafia members had a certain attraction for boys growing up due to the easy money and power they projected, and Henry Hill was one of the boys so impressed. Eventually, he quits school and goes to work for the local mobster Paul Cicero and grows up in this company, learning the ropes of theft. He gets help from Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro) and associates with a violent sociopath Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). They indulge in stealing cargo from the airport and make a pretty penny out of this racket. Henry also falls for a Jewish girl, Karen who initially is put off by him, but slowly gets intrigued by the mafia and the different life it entails for a member.
They (particularly Tommy) get more vicious, and eventually indulge in the ultimate sin, killing a ‘made’ mafia member without sanction, and hide the body so as to seemingly escape the responsibility and retribution. One of their activities in Florida (hanging a gambler over the lion cage in Florida zoo) gets them 4 years in the slammer, a period when Henry is left adrift by his friends and he has to start indulging in dealing drugs to stay afloat (and which also starts his downslide). When Henry gets out of jail, he continues to indulge in the profitable business of drugs despite Paul Cicero’s express disapproval.
The downfall of these gangsters continue - primarily displayed in 2 separate situations. In the first one, after a major robbery, Jimmy starts killing off his associates because they start flashing their wealth, something that could draw attention. And then Tommy is killed due to his role in the earlier unsanctioned killing of the mafia member, Billy Batts.
The day which changes Henry’s life occurs on Sunday, May 11th, 1980, when Henry is involved in many separate things. He has to coordinate a cocaine shipment, meet his mistress, get his brother from the hospital, cook a meal for his family, all the while when he is suffering from lack of sleep and an overdose of drugs; on top of everything, he is under federal surveillance. Eventually, he is arrested by the police; he is bailed out by his wife but the family becomes penniless as she had destroyed the entire cocaine shipment in the process.
Now Henry starts feeling abandoned, and not only abandoned, as being marked for elimination. He decides to turn approver, and break the code of silence. He and his family enter the federal Witness Protection Program, disappearing into anonymity to save their lives, but not before he testifies against Paulie and Jimmy in court.
The movie was a great review hit and earned around $47 million dollars, and also cemented Martin Scorsese’s reputation as a great director. Scorsese wanted to depict the film’s violence realistically, “cold, unfeeling and horrible, and that was the effect that the film’s critics and viewers got to see.

Imagine not being able to stand on a tall step-ladder because of the fear of heights - called as acrophobia. This fear forms the basis for the movie, now known as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest movies, and part of any list of the top 10 movies of all times. The movie however did not always have that reputation. When it released in 1958, it did not create much of a stir, and got a total of 2 Academy nominations (nominations in technical categories - Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color and Best Sound). It did not win a single Oscar, and was essentially not acclaimed for some time.
And then came the re-evaluation. In the 1960’s, the movie started catching the attention of critics and reviewers, and got much more attention when it was re-released commercially in October 1983 and then on home video in October 1984. In the next few years, Vertigo was recognized as being among the best films ever made. Alfred Hitchcock rated it as his favorite movie.

The movie was an unusual movie in the sense that it combines the familiar Hitchcock trait, obsession, with some great sets, a story that is very gripping. Adding a touch of the paranormal to this story also enriches the whole movie; when coupled with a great double role by Kim Novak and the obsessed role played by Jimmy Stewart make this movie worth watching in a repeat mode. For those who have not seen the movie, it is worth watching.
The movie is shot in some great locations in San Francisco, and a great many of the fans of this movie make it a point to visit them. Some of the locations features in the film include such locations as Fort Point at the Golden Gate Bridge, Palace of the Legion of Honor, Muir Woods, Mission San Juan Bautista, Mission Dolores, Palace of Fine Arts, and a few others.
The movie is all about the obsessions of a former police detective John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson. He has always suffered from acrophobia (fear of heights) to some degree, but this develops into a full blown acute fear when he watches his police partner plummet to death during a chase on rooftops (Scottie himself is clutching onto dear life on his fingertips). It is now of the level that he cannot continue in the police force and resigns.
And this fear forms the backdrop of the movie. At such a time, he gets a case from an old wealthy friend, Gavin Elster, to have his wife Madeleine followed. Elster believes that Madeleine may be possessed by the spirit of a woman called Carlotta Valdes who killed herself a 100 years back. And Madeleine plays the part, visiting the grave and moving around in a trance. At one point, Scotties saves her when she throws herself into the San Francisco Bay. They are traveling together when she wants to visit the Mission San Juan Bautista, and then runs up the bell tower. Scottie is unable to follow because of his acrophobia, and can only watch in horror as she throws herself off the tower to her death.
Scottie suffers from depression over this whole incident, and starts to go back to the places that he visited along with Madeleine. And then he meets Judy Barton who looks a lot like Madeleine. She does not tell him the truth about being hired to act as Madeleine while Elster uses Scottie as a pawn to actually throw his real wife off the tower (she writes a letter to Scottie about this, but destroys it soon enough). However, Scottie’s obsession with Madeleine starts to show, making Judy dress up like Madeleine (including even the hair style).
Eventually Scottie forces her to go up to the top of the bell tower, and she confesses the truth to him, making him rage at her. However, Scottie has made it to the top of the bell tower, and this emotional turmoil causes him to lose his fear of vertigo. They reconcile, and then Judy pays a terrible price for his escape from acrophobia. She gets scared of a shadow (a nun) and falls down; Scottie is able to look down at her, thus showing that he has lost his fear of heights, but at a massive price.