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''Dog Day Afternoon'' is a 1975 American
biographical
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...
crime drama
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
film directed by
Sidney Lumet
Sidney Arthur Lumet ( ; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. He was nominated five times for the Academy Award: four for Best Director for ''12 Angry Men'' (1957), ''Dog Day Afternoon'' (1975), ''Network'' (1976), ...
and produced by
Martin Bregman
Martin Leon Bregman (May 18, 1926 – June 16, 2018) was an American film producer and personal manager. He produced many films, including ''Scarface (1983 film), Scarface'', ''Sea of Love (film), Sea of Love'', ''Venom (1981 film), Venom'', ''Se ...
and
Martin Elfand. The film stars
Al Pacino
Alfredo James Pacino (; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he has received numerous accolades: including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy ...
,
John Cazale
John Holland Cazale (; August 12, 1935 – March 13, 1978) was an American actor. He appeared in five films over seven years, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: ''The Godfather'' (1972), ''The Conversation'' (197 ...
,
James Broderick
James Joseph Broderick III (March 7, 1927November 1, 1982) was an American actor. He is known for his role as Doug Lawrence in the television series ''Family'', which ran from 1976 to 1980, and he played a pivotal role in the 1975 film ''Dog Day ...
, and
Charles Durning
Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...
. The screenplay is written by
Frank Pierson
Frank Romer Pierson (May 12, 1925 – July 22, 2012) was an American screenwriter and film director.Byrge, Duane (July 23, 2012). rank Pierson, Former Movie Academy President, Writer and Director, Dies at 87.''The Hollywood Reporter''Yardley, Wi ...
and is based on the ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' magazine article "The Boys in the Bank" by
P. F. Kluge and Thomas Moore. The feature chronicled the 1972 robbery and
hostage situation
A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized, such as a relative, employer, law enforcement or government to act, or refra ...
led by
John Wojtowicz
John Stanley Joseph Wojtowicz (March 9, 1945January 2, 2006) was an American bank robber whose story inspired the 1975 film ''Dog Day Afternoon''.
Early life
Wojtowicz was the son of a Polish father and an Italian-American mother (nee Terry Bass ...
and
Salvatore Naturile
Salvatore Antonio "Sal" Naturile, also known as Donald Matterson (c. 1953/1954– August 23, 1972) was an American bank robber whose attempted robbery of a Chase Manhattan bank branch in Brooklyn, along with John Wojtowicz, in August 1972, ins ...
at a
Chase Manhattan branch in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
.
Elfand brought Bregman's attention to the article, who proceeded to negotiate a deal with
Warner Bros
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Di ...
and clear the rights to use the story. Pierson conducted his research and wrote a script that centered the story of the robbery around Wojtowicz. The cast was selected by Lumet and Pacino, with the latter selecting past co-stars from his
Off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
plays. Filming took place between September and November 1974, and the production was finished three weeks ahead of schedule.
Upon theatrical release on September 21, 1975, ''Dog Day Afternoon'' was a critical and box office success. The film was nominated for six
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
and seven
Golden Globe Awards
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
and won the
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Awards, Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Be ...
. In 2009, ''Dog Day Afternoon'' was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
, and was selected for preservation in the
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...
.
Plot
On August 22, 1972, first-time crook
Sonny Wortzik, his friend
Salvatore "Sal" Naturile, and Stevie attempt to rob the First Brooklyn Savings Bank. The plan immediately goes awry when Stevie loses his nerve and flees. Sonny discovers they arrived after the daily cash pickup, and find only $1,100 in cash.
Sonny takes the bank's
traveler's check
A traveller's cheque is a medium of exchange that can be used in place of hard currency. They can be denominated in one of a number of major world currencies and are preprinted, fixed-amount cheques designed to allow the person signing it to ma ...
s and burns the register in a trash can, but the smoke raises suspicion outside, and the building is surrounded by police. The two panicked robbers take the bank employees hostage.
Police Detective Sergeant Eugene Moretti calls the bank and Sonny bluffs that he is prepared to kill the hostages. Sal assures Sonny that he is ready to kill if necessary. A security guard has an
asthma
Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, cou ...
attack and Sonny releases him as a display of good faith. Moretti convinces Sonny to step outside. Using the head teller as a shield, Sonny begins a dialogue with Moretti that culminates in his shouting "Attica! Attica!" to invoke the recent
Attica Prison riot
The Attica Prison Riot, also known as the Attica Prison Rebellion, the Attica Uprising, or the Attica Prison Massacre, took place at the state prison in Attica, New York; it started on September 9, 1971, and ended on September 13 with the high ...
. The crowd begins cheering for Sonny.
Sonny demands a vehicle to drive himself and Sal to the airport so they can board a jet. He also demands pizzas to be brought for the hostages, and for his wife to be brought to the bank. Sonny's partner, Leon Shermer, arrives and reveals that the robbery was intended to pay for Leon's
sex reassignment surgery
Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
, and divulges that Sonny has children with his estranged wife, Angie.
As night sets in, the bank's lights are shut off as
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
Agent Sheldon takes command of the scene. He refuses to give Sonny any more favors, but when the bank manager Mulvaney goes into diabetic shock, Sheldon lets a doctor inside. Sheldon then convinces Leon to talk to Sonny on the phone. Leon had been hospitalized at
Bellevue Hospital
Bellevue Hospital (officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and formerly known as Bellevue Hospital Center) is a hospital in New York City and the oldest public hospital in the United States. One of the largest hospitals in the United States b ...
after a suicide attempt. Leon turns down Sonny's offer to join him and Sal in their escape, and Sonny tells the police that Leon had nothing to do with the robbery.
Sonny agrees to let Mulvaney leave, but the manager refuses to leave his employees. The FBI calls Sonny out of the bank to talk to his mother, who fails to persuade him to give himself up. Back inside, Sonny writes out his will, leaving money from his life insurance for Angie, and for Leon to have the surgery.
When the requested limousine arrives, Sonny checks for hidden weapons or booby traps, and selects Agent Murphy to drive him, Sal, and the remaining hostages to
Kennedy Airport. Sonny sits in the front beside Murphy with Sal behind. Murphy repeatedly asks Sal to point his gun at the roof so Sal will not accidentally shoot him.
As they wait on the airport tarmac for the plane to taxi into position, Sal releases another hostage, who gives him her rosary beads for his first plane trip. Murphy again reminds Sal to aim his gun away. Sal does, and Sheldon seizes Sonny's weapon, allowing Murphy to pull a revolver hidden in his armrest and shoot Sal in the head. Sonny is immediately arrested, and the hostages are freed.
The film ends as Sonny watches Sal's body being taken from the car on a stretcher. On-screen text reveals that Sonny was sentenced to twenty years in prison, that Leon was a woman living in New York City, and that Angie and her children subsisted on welfare.
Cast
*
Al Pacino
Alfredo James Pacino (; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he has received numerous accolades: including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy ...
as Sonny Wortzik (
John Wojtowicz
John Stanley Joseph Wojtowicz (March 9, 1945January 2, 2006) was an American bank robber whose story inspired the 1975 film ''Dog Day Afternoon''.
Early life
Wojtowicz was the son of a Polish father and an Italian-American mother (nee Terry Bass ...
)
*
John Cazale
John Holland Cazale (; August 12, 1935 – March 13, 1978) was an American actor. He appeared in five films over seven years, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: ''The Godfather'' (1972), ''The Conversation'' (197 ...
as Sal Naturile (
Salvatore Naturile
Salvatore Antonio "Sal" Naturile, also known as Donald Matterson (c. 1953/1954– August 23, 1972) was an American bank robber whose attempted robbery of a Chase Manhattan bank branch in Brooklyn, along with John Wojtowicz, in August 1972, ins ...
)
*
Charles Durning
Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...
as Sergeant Eugene Moretti
*
Chris Sarandon
Christopher Sarandon (; born July 24, 1942) is an American actor. He is well known for playing a variety of iconic characters, including Jerry Dandrige in ''Fright Night'' (1985), Prince Humperdinck in ''The Princess Bride'' (1987), Detective Mik ...
as Leon Shermer (
Elizabeth Eden, then Ernest Aron)
*
Penelope Allen
Penelope Allen, also known as Penny Allen, is an American stage and film actress and acting coach. She is best known as the head bank teller being held hostage in the film '' Dog Day Afternoon''. She also played Annie, the wife of Francis Lionel " ...
as Sylvia 'Mouth' (Shirley "Mouth" Ball)
*
Sully Boyar
Sully may refer to:
* Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (born 1951), American pilot notable for landing his disabled airliner on the Hudson
** ''Sully'' (film), a 2016 film by Clint Eastwood about Sullenberger
Places France
* Sully, Calvados, commu ...
as Mulvaney (Robert Barrett)
*
Susan Peretz as Angie (Carmen Wojtowicz)
*
James Broderick
James Joseph Broderick III (March 7, 1927November 1, 1982) was an American actor. He is known for his role as Doug Lawrence in the television series ''Family'', which ran from 1976 to 1980, and he played a pivotal role in the 1975 film ''Dog Day ...
as FBI Agent Sheldon
*
Lance Henriksen
Lance Henriksen (born May 5, 1940) is an American actor. He is known for his works in various science fiction, action and horror films, such as that of Bishop in the ''Alien'' film franchise, and Frank Black in Fox television series ''Millennium ...
as FBI Agent Murphy
*
Carol Kane
Carolyn Laurie Kane (born June 18, 1952) is an American actress. She became known in the 1970s and 1980s in films such as '' Hester Street'' (for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress), ''Dog Day Afternoon'', ''Annie ...
as Jenny 'The Squirrel'
* Beulah Garrick as Margaret
* Sandra Kazan as Deborah
* Estelle Omens as Edna
*
Marcia Jean Kurtz
Marcia Jean Kurtz is an American film, stage, and television actress and director. She has appeared in such films as ''The Panic in Needle Park'', '' In Her Shoes'', and '' Big Fan'', appearing as Miriam Douglas in ''Dog Day Afternoon'' and ''In ...
as Miriam
* Amy Levitt as Maria
* Gary Springer as Stevie
*
John Marriott as Calvin Jones
*
Philip Charles MacKenzie
Philip Charles MacKenzie (born Philip Charles Harris on May 7, 1946) is an American actor and television director. He is best known for his role as Donald Maltby on ''Brothers'', and as Ted Nichols on '' Open House'', which he worked on with hi ...
as the doctor
*
Dick Anthony Williams
Richard Anthony Williams (August 9, 1934 – February 16, 2012) was an American actor. Williams is best known for his starring performances on Broadway in ''The Poison Tree'', ''What the Wine-Sellers Buy'' and ''Black Picture Show''. Williams also ...
as the Limo Driver / Undercover FBI Agent
*
Judith Malina
Judith Malina (June 4, 1926 – April 10, 2015) was a German-born American actress, director and writer. With her husband, Julian Beck, Malina co-founded The Living Theatre, a radical political theatre troupe that rose to prominence in New York C ...
as Sonny's Mother
*
Dominic Chianese
Dominic Chianese (; born February 24, 1931) is an American actor, singer, and musician. He is best known for his roles as Corrado "Junior" Soprano on the HBO series ''The Sopranos'' (1999–2007), Johnny Ola in ''The Godfather Part II'' (197 ...
as Sonny's father
*
Edwin "Chu Chu" Malave as Maria's boyfriend
* Lionel Pina as the Pizza Boy
Background
On August 22, 1972,
John Wojtowicz
John Stanley Joseph Wojtowicz (March 9, 1945January 2, 2006) was an American bank robber whose story inspired the 1975 film ''Dog Day Afternoon''.
Early life
Wojtowicz was the son of a Polish father and an Italian-American mother (nee Terry Bass ...
,
Salvatore Naturile
Salvatore Antonio "Sal" Naturile, also known as Donald Matterson (c. 1953/1954– August 23, 1972) was an American bank robber whose attempted robbery of a Chase Manhattan bank branch in Brooklyn, along with John Wojtowicz, in August 1972, ins ...
, and Robert Westenberg attempted to rob a branch of the
Chase Manhattan Bank
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase Bank or often as Chase, is an American national bank headquartered in New York City, that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the U.S. multinational banking and fina ...
at 450 Avenue P in
Gravesend, Brooklyn
Gravesend is a neighborhood in the south-central section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, on the southwestern edge of Long Island in the U.S. state of New York. It is bounded by the Belt Parkway to the south, Bay Parkway to the west, ...
. The robbers aimed to take the US$150,000–$200,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) that they expected to be delivered at 3:30 p.m. that afternoon by an armored truck. According to Wojtowicz, a Chase Manhattan executive that he met at a gay bar in
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
tipped him off. They entered the bank at 3:00 p.m. to discover that the armored truck had instead taken money away at 11:00 a.m. The robbers took the $29,000 () that was available at the branch and tried to escape. Westenberg was successful, but Wojtowicz and Naturile were left behind as the police arrived on the scene. The robbery then turned into a
hostage situation
A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized, such as a relative, employer, law enforcement or government to act, or refra ...
.
![LFChaseP1975](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/LFChaseP1975.jpg)
Two hours into the negotiations Wojtowicz and Naturile extended a list of demands to the police: release Elizabeth Eden (Ernest Aron) from
Kings County Hospital Center
Kings County Hospital Center is a municipal hospital located in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. It is owned and operated by NYC Health + Hospitals, a municipal agency that runs New York City's public hospitals. It has ...
in exchange for a hostage, bring hamburgers and Coca-Cola, and provide transportation to John F. Kennedy International Airport for them and the hostages. In the words of Wojtowicz: "I want them to deliver my wife here from King's County hospital. His name is Ernest Aron. It's a guy. I'm gay."
They also requested a plane to fly to a safe location, where the unharmed hostages were to be released. After more than fourteen hours of holding the hostages, Naturile was killed, and Wojtowicz was arrested at Kennedy Airport.
Wojtowicz told Judge
Anthony J. Travia that the motive for the robbery was to pay for a sexual reassignment surgery for Eden. Shortly after a suicide attempt in 1971, Eden expressed to Father Gennaro Aurichio the desire to marry Wojtowicz. Aurichio recalled Eden told him, "I'm all mixed up. I want to be a girl. I have to marry the boy I introduced you to. If I don't, I'll be more successful next time." Aurichio, who counseled Eden, agreed to perform a ceremony. He told Eden that he would "perform a blessing" but that he was unable and unwilling to "perform a homosexual marriage". Aurichio was subsequently
defrocked
Defrocking, unfrocking, degradation, or laicization of clergy is the removal of their rights to exercise the functions of the ordained ministry. It may be grounded on criminal convictions, disciplinary problems, or disagreements over doctrine or d ...
.
Arthur Bell, an
investigative journalist
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...
, expressed his belief that the surgery was a peripheral motive for the robbery. Bell met Wojtowicz before the hold up through the
Gay Activists Alliance
The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded in New York City on December 21, 1969, almost six months after the Stonewall riots, by dissident members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In contrast to the Liberation Front, the Activists Alliance s ...
, under the alias of "Littlejohn Basso". In his article published by ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
'', he laid out Wojtowicz's connection to pornographer Mike Umbers and proposed that the heist was organized by the
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Ame ...
instead.
Production
Development
''
LIFE
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' published in its September 22, 1972 issue a chronicle of the robbery. The feature, written by
P. F. Kluge and Thomas Moore, was titled "The Boys in the Bank". It detailed the holdup and the hostages' eventual
fraternization with their captors. The authors compared Wojtowicz's appearance to that of
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is th ...
or
Al Pacino
Alfredo James Pacino (; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he has received numerous accolades: including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy ...
. The feature caught the attention of producer
Martin Elfand. Elfand took it to
Martin Bregman
Martin Leon Bregman (May 18, 1926 – June 16, 2018) was an American film producer and personal manager. He produced many films, including ''Scarface (1983 film), Scarface'', ''Sea of Love (film), Sea of Love'', ''Venom (1981 film), Venom'', ''Se ...
, who piqued the interest of
Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...
' executive
Richard Shepherd
Sir Richard Charles Scrimgeour Shepherd (6 December 1942 – 19 February 2022) was a British politician who was Member of Parliament for Aldridge-Brownhills from 1979 to 2015. A Eurosceptic, Shepherd was one of the Maastricht Rebels that had ...
. Elfand hired Kluge and Moore to interview the people involved in the story. Before the script was written, Elfand wanted to ensure he had signed releases by all the interviewees for the story rights. After the negotiation, each hostage received $600 (); one hostage asked for more money and was not included in the script. Initially, Westenberg was offered $2,000, but he turned it down following the advice of his lawyer, as he was still serving a two-year sentence. After his release, he settled for $750. Wojtowicz received $7,500 () for the rights to the story. From the money, he earmarked $2,500 to Eden's reassignment surgery. News outlets reported Wojtowicz was granted one percent of the film's net profit; Bregman later denied that his company, Artists Entertainment Complex, granted Wojtowicz a percentage of the gross. Bregman added he would give him $25,000 if the film performed as well as ''
Serpico
''Serpico'' is a 1973 American neo-noir biographical crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Al Pacino in the title role. The screenplay was adapted by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler from the book of the same name written by Peter ...
'' (1973) at the box office. Wojtowicz's lawyer, Mark Landsman, retained $3,500 of the payment he received. Meanwhile, Warner Bros paid for Naturile's funeral. The working title of the film was ''The Boys in the Bank''. The budget was set at an estimate of $3.5 million (equivalent to $ million in ), or $3.8 million (equivalent to $ million in ).
Frank Pierson
Frank Romer Pierson (May 12, 1925 – July 22, 2012) was an American screenwriter and film director.Byrge, Duane (July 23, 2012). rank Pierson, Former Movie Academy President, Writer and Director, Dies at 87.''The Hollywood Reporter''Yardley, Wi ...
was hired to write the screenplay. Aside from Kluge and Moore's research, Pierson conducted his own. He contacted journalist
Randy Wicker
Randy is a given name, popular in the United States and Canada. It is primarily a masculine name. It was originally derived from the names Randall, Randolf, Randolph, as well as Bertrand and Andrew, and may be a short form (hypocorism) of them ...
, who covered the story of the heist for gay publications, and provided technical assistance regarding Manhattan's gay nightclub scene. Pierson decided he wanted to center the story around Wojtowicz, who refused to receive Pierson in prison while he was in a financial dispute with Warner Bros. Pierson analyzed the tapes of the interviews and news articles about the robbery and approached those involved for additional information. Pierson could not define Wojtowicz's character because a different impression was left on each of the interviewees. The project overwhelmed him, but he could not quit, as he had spent his cash advance. Pierson reviewed his material and found the unfulfilled promises Wojtowicz made as the common trait. Pierson viewed them as "the story of the bank" and the failure of the robbery. Pierson finished the screenplay by Christmas 1973. Author
Leslie Waller
Leslie Elson Waller (April 1, 1923 – March 29, 2007) was an American writer.
Biography
He is a son of Ukrainian immigrants and was born in Chicago, Illinois. He suffered from amblyopia and poliomyelitis as a child, but graduated from Hyde Par ...
later worked on a
novelization
A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of ...
of the Pierson script, to be published after the release of the film by
Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title, ''I Confess'', and ...
.
Casting
With the finished script, Bregman met with director
Sidney Lumet
Sidney Arthur Lumet ( ; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. He was nominated five times for the Academy Award: four for Best Director for ''12 Angry Men'' (1957), ''Dog Day Afternoon'' (1975), ''Network'' (1976), ...
and Pacino in London. Pacino, who was at the time represented by Bregman, agreed to play the role. He then backed out, and Dustin Hoffman expressed interest. Bregman did not meet with Hoffman; he felt Pacino could bring the "sensitivity" and "vulnerability" needed for the role. After more discussion, Pacino accepted the part but then rejected it again. Bregman attributed it to Pacino's use of
method acting
Method acting, informally known as The Method, is a range of training and rehearsal techniques, as formulated by a number of different theatre practitioners, that seeks to encourage sincere and expressive performances through identifying with, u ...
and said it "might have been a world
acinodid not want to explore". Bregman added that "no major star had ever played a gay". He wanted to make the film with Pacino. The actor backed out of the project a third time and told Bregman he wanted to return to the theater. He said he would "never make the adjustment necessary for the movies". Pacino again returned to the project and attributed his behavior to stress and drinking, and that he needed "a life outside work". Lumet mentioned the characterization of Sonny Wortzik's (Wojtowicz) "insane framework of life" as the stress factor for Pacino. In a meeting before the rehearsals, Pacino asked Pierson and Lumet to tone down Sonny Wortzik's behavior; his request was rejected. Eden described Wojtowicz as "a very domineering person", and added: "he is good-natured ... but sometimes went overboard ... and he terrified me". Wicker later said that the screenplay of ''Dog Day Afternoon'' portrayed Wojtowicz to be "more rational than he really was".
Much of the cast consisted of actors Pacino performed with in
Off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
plays. Pacino asked Lumet to cast
John Cazale
John Holland Cazale (; August 12, 1935 – March 13, 1978) was an American actor. He appeared in five films over seven years, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: ''The Godfather'' (1972), ''The Conversation'' (197 ...
as Sal Naturile, whose was the only name that did not change for the film. Pacino had worked with Cazale on
Israel Horovitz
Israel Horovitz (March 31, 1939 – November 9, 2020) was an American playwright, director, actor and co-founder of the Gloucester Stage Company in 1979. He served as artistic director until 2006 and later served on the board, ex officio an ...
's play ''
The Indian Wants the Bronx'', and then in the 1972 film ''
The Godfather
''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, ...
''. Lumet was not initially convinced he should cast Cazale. He was thirty-nine years old, while Naturile was eighteen years old at the time of his death, but the director agreed after meeting him.
Penelope Allen
Penelope Allen, also known as Penny Allen, is an American stage and film actress and acting coach. She is best known as the head bank teller being held hostage in the film '' Dog Day Afternoon''. She also played Annie, the wife of Francis Lionel " ...
starred as Sylvia "Mouth" (based on Shirley "Mouth" Ball), and had worked with Pacino before on ''
Scarecrow
A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin, often in the shape of a human. Humanoid scarecrows are usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.Lesley B ...
''. For the role of Wortzik's mother, Pacino asked Lumet to cast
Judith Malina
Judith Malina (June 4, 1926 – April 10, 2015) was a German-born American actress, director and writer. With her husband, Julian Beck, Malina co-founded The Living Theatre, a radical political theatre troupe that rose to prominence in New York C ...
, co-founder of
The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States. For most of its history it was led by its founders, actress Judith Malina and painter/po ...
. Lumet wanted to portray the difference between a street police officer and one with an office job.
Charles Durning
Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...
and
James Broderick
James Joseph Broderick III (March 7, 1927November 1, 1982) was an American actor. He is known for his role as Doug Lawrence in the television series ''Family'', which ran from 1976 to 1980, and he played a pivotal role in the 1975 film ''Dog Day ...
were cast as Moretti and Sheldon respectively, though Lumet initially decided on Durning being the bank manager and Broderick playing Moretti until Pacino intervened. Because Durning was also working on
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films ''West Side Story'' (1961) and ''The Sound of ...
's ''
Two People'', Lumet and Wise had to coordinate his schedule, as he flew between California and New York. Lumet did not worry about Broderick's recasting because of his reputation for
method acting
Method acting, informally known as The Method, is a range of training and rehearsal techniques, as formulated by a number of different theatre practitioners, that seeks to encourage sincere and expressive performances through identifying with, u ...
.
Sully Boyar
Sully may refer to:
* Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (born 1951), American pilot notable for landing his disabled airliner on the Hudson
** ''Sully'' (film), a 2016 film by Clint Eastwood about Sullenberger
Places France
* Sully, Calvados, commu ...
was cast as bank manager Mulvaney (based on Robert Barrett).
Chris Sarandon
Christopher Sarandon (; born July 24, 1942) is an American actor. He is well known for playing a variety of iconic characters, including Jerry Dandrige in ''Fright Night'' (1985), Prince Humperdinck in ''The Princess Bride'' (1987), Detective Mik ...
convinced Lumet and Pacino during his reading and was cast as Leon Shermer. Lumet asked him to shift the focus of his characterization to "a little less
Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois (married name Grey) is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play ''A Streetcar Named Desire''. The character was written for Tallulah Bankhead and made popular to later audiences with Elia Kaza ...
, a little more Queens housewife".
There were three weeks of rehearsals, and the name of the project was changed to ''Dog Day Afternoon''. Pierson flew from Los Angeles to New York at Lumet's request. Pacino refused to kiss Sarandon in a scene as he thought it was "exploitative"; he felt that the script kept "pushing the gay issue" on the audience. He expressed the view that viewers already knew the characters were homosexual and wanted to convey the failure of the relationship instead. Pierson agreed; he realized the couple did not actually kiss and that they had actually carried on a phone conversation. Pierson modified the scene to include the call. The
National Gay Task Force
The National LGBTQ Task Force is an American social justice advocacy non-profit organizing the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Also known as The Task Force, the organization supports ac ...
approved of the script. Ronald Gold, then director of the organization, welcomed it as "sensitive and tasteful".
Filming
Opening scene
Filming took place between September and November 1974. The opening montage shows New York's traffic, bridges, beaches, and neighborhoods before moving to a view of the Manhattan skyline from a cemetery. Lumet wanted to convey "a hot boring day, a
dog day afternoon". The director shot the footage from a station wagon, and ended in front of the bank, showing the robbers. The footage was silent, as Lumet decided that he did not want a score for the film. The director felt that "he could not reconcile trying to convince an audience that this really happened ... with putting a music score into it". Editor
Dede Allen
Dorothea Corothers "Dede" Allen (December 3, 1923 – April 17, 2010) This obituary incorrectly states that she was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was subsequently acknowledged in an online correction. was an American film editor, well-known " ...
played
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
's composition "
Amoreena" in the editing room. Lumet added the song to the film, which comes out of the getaway car's radio.
The bank
Most of the film took place inside of the bank. Lumet discarded the idea of building a studio set; instead, the director found a street with a warehouse on the lower floor of a building that used to be an automotive workshop. The crew built a bank set with movable walls, which allowed Lumet to place the cameras as he desired, and to use
long lenses to shoot from a distance. The warehouse's location also allowed Lumet to transition freely between the bank and the street, and he avoided changing film locations, and allowed the street to be visible from the inside of the bank. The scenes were shot on Prospect Park West, between 17th and 18th streets. The bus line that ran through the street was re-routed for filming, and the second story of the building housed the production offices and catering.
![Al Pacino Penelope Allen in Dog Day Afternoon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Al_Pacino_Penelope_Allen_in_Dog_Day_Afternoon.jpg)
To capture Pacino's movements in a natural fashion, and to allow the actor greater mobility, Lumet integrated the use of roller skates and wheelchairs for the cameramen in the panoramic shots. Lumet would order the camera operators to be pulled as Pacino acted to make the scene look "naturalistic", and "like it was shot by television cameramen, fighting their way through the crowd". He wanted the production to have the appearance of a newsreel. The film featured
close-up
A close-up or closeup in filmmaking, television production, still photography, and the comic strip medium is a type of shot that tightly frames a person or object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium and long s ...
s centered on Sonny and the situation in the bank.
Two different cameras were used to cover the negotiations from Durning and Pacino's side. Lumet and cinematographer
Victor J. Kemper relied on
long shots
In photography, filmmaking and video production, a wide shot (sometimes referred to as a full shot or long shot) is a shot that typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surro ...
to depict the point of view of the police, and the robbers' "entrapment". Lumet wanted to use the light available on the set to avoid additional luminescence. He fitted the bank with extra
fluorescent lamp
A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet lig ...
s to achieve desired exposure, and he used other fluorescent lamps of lower power as
fill light
Fill may refer to:
* Fill dirt, soil added to an area
** Fill (archaeology), the material that has accumulated or has been deposited into a cut feature such as ditch or pit
** Fill (land), dirt, rock or other material added to level or raise the ...
in close-ups. The film required seven nights of filming. Lumet needed the neighbors' cooperation for the use of their
fire escape
A fire escape is a special kind of emergency exit, usually mounted to the outside of a building or occasionally inside but separate from the main areas of the building. It provides a method of escape in the event of a fire or other emergency th ...
s to hold additional lights. The production was challenged by the weather, as temperatures dropped. On the day of the heist in August 1972, the temperature reached when the robbers entered the bank. The film was shot during the fall; to avoid having their breath be visible, the cast placed ice in their mouths to even out the temperature. Lighting was provided for the scenes by
emergency vehicles
An emergency vehicle is a vehicle used by emergency services. Emergency vehicles typically have specialized emergency lighting and vehicle equipment that allow emergency services to reach calls for service in a timely manner, transport equipment a ...
, that were specially fitted with four 7,500 watt lamps. The white brick
façade
A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'.
In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...
of the building provided light reflection. An existing lamp post was utilized, and its lighting reinforced to keep the crowd visible.
Emergency light
An emergency light is a battery-backed lighting device that switches on automatically when a building experiences a power outage.
In the United States, emergency lights are standard in new commercial and high occupancy residential buildings, ...
s were used on set in scenes where the power was shut off by the police.
Pacino shot the first scene wearing sunglasses, but he asked the director to re-shoot it after watching the
dailies
In filmmaking, dailies are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. The term comes from when movies were all shot on film because usually at the end of each day, the footage was developed, synced to sound, and pri ...
, as he felt that Sonny "wanted to get caught". He also shaved off a moustache he grew for the role after the replay. Lumet allowed the cast to
ad-lib
In music and other performing arts, the phrase (; from Latin for 'at one's pleasure' or 'as you desire'), often shortened to "ad lib" (as an adjective or adverb) or "ad-lib" (as a verb or noun), refers to various forms of improvisation.
The r ...
lines with the condition that they did not deviate greatly from the script by Pierson. The production team had recorded improvisations during the rehearsals that were added to the script. Lumet wanted the dialog to "feel natural", and he encouraged the actors to wear their own clothes and to not use makeup.
A crowd of three to four hundred extras was hired. Meanwhile, Lumet asked the neighbors to appear in the film by watching from their windows. The director offered to relocate to a hotel for those who did not want to be disturbed by the shooting. The crowd grew as filming progressed, and pedestrians joined the actors. Lumet directed the crowd and "whipp
dthem up to a frenzy". By the second week, he felt that the crowd could improvise on its own. To amplify the effect in the film, he utilized hand-held cameras. In regards to the project while it was filming, Lumet said "It's out of my hands. It's got a life of its own". In a scene on the street, before Pacino left the bank, assistant director Burtt Harris whispered to him to ask the crowd about Attica. Pacino then improvised the complete dialog with the crowd.
Phone conversations
Lumet decided to shoot the phone conversations Sonny had with his wife and Leon back-to-back. As Pacino acted the scene, he increased the intensity of the portrayal. While both conversations lasted a total of fourteen minutes, Lumet's camera could only shoot ten at a time, and he had to bring a second camera. For the scene, Lumet separated Pacino from the rest of the bank with a black velvet mask to isolate him. He left a hole for both cameras, and for himself to look in. Lumet wanted a second take. An exhausted Pacino accepted, and he kept the same intensity. At the end of the scene, Lumet and Pacino cried. The director later remembered it as "an amazing moment, as good a moment of directing as I've ever had in my life".
The call between Pacino and Sarandon was improvised. Lumet felt that Sarandon "had great taste", and that the actor would not resort to "homosexual clichés". He deemed the humor of his improvisation as "genuinely funny", and that it was not "laughing at a gay character". Sarandon felt that the conversation was welcomed by the audiences because it "wasn't about a drag queen and his boyfriend", and that it reflected two people that were "trying to come to grips with what is wrong in their relationship." The film was characterized by its "light comic touch", and according to critic
David Thomson, for its "ear and instinct for comedy". In Pierson's script, Wortzik's question regarding which country Sal wanted to escape to did not have a scripted response, but Cazale improvised by answering "Wyoming". Lumet had to cover his mouth, as he nearly interrupted the scene by laughing.
Final scene
The start of the final scene at the bank was shot on a night with wind. Pacino was sprinkled with water to simulate sweat; Lumet mixed the artificial sweat himself, as he felt that the makeup crews often used it in excess, or that it was insufficient. The director used a mixture of glycerin and water that he learned to make during the shooting of ''
12 Angry Men
''Twelve Angry Men'' is an American courtroom drama written by Reginald Rose concerning the jury of a homicide trial. It was broadcast initially as a television play in 1954. The following year it was adapted for the stage. It was adapted for a ...
''. The mixture lasted longer and allowed him better continuity throughout the scenes.
Harris directed the scene of the caravan that headed to Kennedy Airport from a helicopter. A plane and squad cars on the tarmac were used. Senator
Jacob Javits
Jacob Koppel Javits ( ; May 18, 1904 – March 7, 1986) was an American lawyer and politician. During his time in politics, he represented the state of New York in both houses of the United States Congress. A member of the Republican Party, he a ...
, an acquaintance of Lumet, facilitated the negotiations with the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized ...
. The production team was given one day to shoot in an area of the airport that was not a terminal. The international flights that headed to the main runway had to go around the shooting location. Lumet directed the scene at the airport from the ground. He chose to cut from the close-up after Sal was shot and a gun was held to Sonny's head, to a long shot; the view presented a panorama of the scene at the airport. Lumet centered on Pacino and ordered the crew to roll Cazale on a stretcher to be visible by the actor. Pacino used the image to improvise his reaction.
The shooting was completed three weeks ahead of schedule. After editing the film, Lumet and Allen felt that the slow-paced scene of Sonny writing his testament conflicted with the rest of the fast-moving sequences, so they decided to restore six to seven minutes of discarded footage to balance the tempo of the film. Lumet stated the scene of the last will was the reason for his decision to work on the film; he considered it "moving", but worried about the audience laughing at it. His worries were based on what he considered "the defensive attitude on sexual subjects": to avoid it, he focused on portraying emotional performances by the actors throughout the film.
Lumet had access to the footage of Wojtowicz and Eden's ceremony, originally broadcast by
Channel 5 at the time of the robbery, which featured Wojtowicz in his army uniform presenting a wedding ring with a
flash cube to Eden, who wore a wedding dress. Wojtowicz's mother and eight male bridesmaids were present. Lumet planned to use it in the film; the scene would have featured the footage broadcast on a television in the bank, but he decided not to include it, as he felt it would be "unrecoverable" and that the audiences would not "take the rest of the movie seriously".
Release and reception
''Dog Day Afternoon'' opened on September 20, 1975, at the
San Sebastián International Film Festival
The San Sebastián International Film Festival ( SSIFF; es, Festival Internacional de San Sebastián, eu, Donostia Zinemaldia) is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of Donostia-San Sebastián in September, in th ...
. The film premiered in New York City on September 21, 1975, and released nationwide in October. It grossed between $50 million (equivalent to $ million in ) million and $56 million (equivalent to $ million in ).
''Dog Day Afternoon'' holds a "Certified Fresh" 96% rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
based on fifty-one reviews. The site's consensus states: "Framed by great work from director Sidney Lumet and fueled by a gripping performance from Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon offers a finely detailed snapshot of people in crisis with tension-soaked drama shaded in black humor."
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' delivered a favorable review. It called the film a "gaudy street-carnival", and Lumet's "most accurate, most flamboyant" depiction of New York. The reviewer remarked the "brilliant characterizations" of the cast: Pacino's display of a "bravura style", Sarandon's performance of "fear, dignity and silliness" and the acting "that one remembers" from the supporting cast. ''
New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...
'' gave ''Dog Day Afternoon'' four stars: it described the film as a "gut-level human comedy" and called Pacino "stunning", "brilliantly erratic and terribly touching". The publication felt that Pacino portrayed "a rich, volatile character". It favored Durning and Sarandon, and called the female cast "marvelous". ''
The Record'' welcomed the performances as "very natural". It determined that "all the slickness" was on Pierson's script, and it attributed it to its closeness to the real events portrayed on the film. For ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
'', critic
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris (October 31, 1928 – June 20, 2012) was an American film critic. He was a leading proponent of the auteur theory of film criticism.
Early life
Sarris was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Greek immigrant parents, Themis (née Katav ...
opined that Pacino acted "assiduously with the whites of his eyes". Sarris also noted that "pain
ame #REDIRECT AME #REDIRECT AME
{{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...
{{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...
pouring out of Pacino's eyes" as he deemed Sonny a "Freudian tragic hero", and that the combination with Cazale's character's "deadpan death wish" produced "much emotional debris". The piece declared the "high point" of the film to be the phone conversation between Pacino and Sarandon. Sarris pointed that the dialogue featured "two wounded creatures capable of an extraordinary emotional audacity", and concluded that the film was to be "seen, but not swallowed whole" and "making heroes out of felons" was "a short step to utter chaos". Film critic
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
rated it with three-and-a-half stars out of four, welcoming its "irreverent, quirky sense of humor". Gary Arnold of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' called it "a triumphant new classic of American movie naturalism".
Penelope Gilliatt
Penelope Gilliatt (; born Penelope Ann Douglass Conner; 25 March 1932 – 9 May 1993) was an English novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and film critic. As one of the main film critics for ''The New Yorker'' magazine in the 1960s an ...
of ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' wrote, "Though the farcical tone of the movie is blusterous, falling into the common show-biz habit of supplying energy in place of intent, the movie succeeds, on the whole, because it has the crucial farcical value of not faltering."
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his d ...
gave ''Dog Day Afternoon'' four stars on his review for the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'', and rated the film as "superb", noting the "scenes mixing the fear of violence with insane laughter". He felt that Pacino, Cazale, and Durning kept the film from "degenerating into silliness". Siskel talked about Pacino's display of "so much energy" that made him "believe the unbelievable" and Cazale's "haunting, sallow-cheeked silence". Lumet and Allen were praised for the "terrific, roller-coaster" pace of the film.
United Press International
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...
defined it as an "exceptionally fine film—outrageously funny and deeply moving", and welcomed Pacino's acting as a "dazzing display". The supporting roles by Cazale, Durning, Allen and Broderick were deemed "excellent", while Peretz and Sarandon's performances were singled out. For
Joe Baltake, Pacino's appearance was a "raw, high voltage, uproariously funny performance". His review on the ''
Philadelphia Daily News
''Philadelphia Daily News'' is a tabloid newspaper that serves Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper is owned by The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC, which also owns Philadelphia's other major newspaper ''The Philadelphia Inquirer''.
The ''Dail ...
'' continued by calling the film "super-charged", and "multi-leveled" by "a slapstick comedy, tense drama, caper tale, biographical material and character study". Baltake compared Cazale's appearance on the film to that of a ''
Coonskin'' character by
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938) is an American animator and filmmaker. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatric ...
. In regards to the rest of the cast, he determined "everyone
asgood". He praised Kemper's cinematography as "you-are-there" and Allen's "razor-sharp editing".
''
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' praised Lumet's "wonderful" direction of "in-depth, psychological probing". Critic Kevin Kelly hailed the editing by Allen as "brilliant", and defined Pacino's performance as "virtuose" and Cazele's as "shyly and sorrowfully eloquent". The review also favored the "fine performances" by the supporting cast. ''
The Evening Sun'' applauded the humor in the movie. Critic Lou Cedrone felt that it was "natural and true"; he stressed that Pierson's script, combined with the work of Pacino and Lumet, made the drama "never uncomfortable". The ''
Detroit Free Press
The ''Detroit Free Press'' is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the ''Sunday Free Press''. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primari ...
'' expressed that the picture relied on Pacino's "tender, forthright, generous and affecting in extreme" performance.
The ''
Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...
'' praised ''Dog Day Afternoon'' as "a movie of fascinating realism". Critic John Huddy expressed that the street scenes were "magnificently staged", and that Lumet "finds order in chaos, sense in insanity". ''
The Atlanta Constitution
''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...
'' applauded Durning as "absolutely real", and the reviewer opined that the cast was "consistently fine". It concluded by mentioning "the excellent script and editing", and defined the film as "funny and poignant".
The ''
Montreal Gazette
The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...
'' mentioned the variety of characters presented in the film. The reviewer concluded that it was "a monument to the thought and care" by the production team. Pacino's "remarkable performance", and Pierson's "all-inclusive" script were noted. ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' opined that ''Dog Day Afternoon'' presented Lumet's "best film for some considerable time", and deemed Pacino's acting as "brilliant" and Cazale's as "well-observed". ''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'' considered it "beautifully directed" by Lumet, and "another mature American picture which faces and mirrors reality".
Lawsuits
Wojtowicz's wife, Carmen, received $50 () from Artists Entertainment Complex for her contribution to the story. She signed the documents to Wicker, who recorded in exchange a tape with her account on behalf of the company. The depiction of her character, Angie, in the film affected her, as she felt she was deemed "repulsive". The novelization of ''Dog Day Afternoon'' described her as "a fat cunt", "no-good pusbag" and a "guinea broad", among other pejorative terms. In the film, Angie laments her weight gain as the reason for Sonny's distance. Wojtowicz was also angered by her depiction in the film, and defined his then-wife as "a sweet kid". Pierson declared that the character was presented "farthest from the truth", and that he could not "stand how
umetcasted the role", or how Peretz portrayed her. He further stressed his disappointment at the publicity campaign that presented the film as a "true story", and remarked its differences with the ''Life'' article. Pierson presented a complaint to the
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers:
* The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO
* The Writers Guil ...
. Kluge, a coauthor of the ''Life'' feature, believed the filmmakers "stayed with the surface of a lively journalistic story" and that the film had a "strong, fast-paced story" without "reflection" or "a contemplative view of life".
Carmen took legal action against Warner Bros. On behalf of her, and her daughters Carmen and Dawn, Wojtowicz filed an
Invasion of Privacy
The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 150 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. On 10 December 194 ...
lawsuit for $12 million. The
appellate division of the New York Supreme Court
The Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court of the State of New York are the intermediate appellate courts in New York State.
There are four Appellate Divisions, one in each of the state's four Judicial Departments (e.g., the full title of the ...
ruled in favor of Warner Bros, as the court determined that the true names or pictures of the family and robbers were not used in the film or the book. Wojtowicz then sued the studio for one percent of the earnings he claimed were included in the deal for the use of his story; he received $40,000 () after lawyer's fees were deducted. The
New York Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...
ordered that $100 () were to be given weekly to Carmen Wojtowicz, plus $50 weekly for both children. The rest of the money was placed in escrow of the New York State Crime Victims Compensation Board to pay for the claims of the victims of the 1972 robbery.
Legacy
Analysis in the 21st century of ''Dog Day Afternoon'' has interpreted it as an "
anti-authoritarian
Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as "a form of social organisation characterised by submission to authority", "favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom" and ...
film" that "defied the establishment," particularly with the emphasis on the Attica Prison riot and the character's resentment toward the police. Commentators also mentioned its contemporaneity with the aftermath of the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
and the
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
. It became one of the first motion pictures to portray a gay character as the protagonist. In 2009, ''Dog Day Afternoon'' was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
, and it was selected for preservation in the
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...
.
On November 11, 1979, a censored and shortened version was broadcast on
NBC's Sunday Night Big Event, which marked the film's television premiere. It was released on
VHS in 1985. In 2006,
Warner Home Video
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros.
It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video ...
released ''Dog Day Afternoon'' on a double-disc
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
. For the film's fortieth anniversary, a two-disc
blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
was released in 2015. On the
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film scored 86 based on fifteen professional reviews. Meanwhile,
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
gave the film a score of 96% based on reviews from 48 critics, with an average rating of 8.60/10. The consensus reads: "''Dog Day Afternoon'' offers a finely detailed snapshot of people in crisis with tension-soaked drama shaded in black humor."
AllMovie
AllMovie (previously All Movie Guide) is an online database with information about films, television programs, and screen actors. , AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne.
History
AllMovie was founded by popular-cult ...
gave the movie five stars out of five. The review defined it as "a quintessential 1970s story", and focused on the film's "contemporary tensions over law, media, and sexuality".
Christopher Null
Christopher Null is an American writer, film critic, and columnist. A former blogger for Yahoo! Tech, he was the editor of Drinkhacker.com, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Filmcritic.com, which operated from 1995 to 2012. In 2003, CNN cal ...
wrote in 2006 that the film "captures perfectly the
zeitgeist
In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' () ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history.
Now, the term is usually associated with Georg W. F. ...
of the early 1970s, a time when optimism was scraping rock bottom and John Wojtowicz was as good a hero as we could come up with". During the 2011
San Francisco International Film Festival
The San Francisco International Film Festival (abbreviated as SFIFF), organized by the San Francisco Film Society, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in in ...
, the film was included as a tribute to Pierson for his recent death. The ''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
'' reflected on the time of its release, and the reviewer felt that "it seemed as if the great movies would never stop, when the extraordinary creative burst we'd been seeing in the 1970s looked as though it might go on forever". ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' called it a "frank social melodrama that's also a celebration of quotidian bravery", while it praised the cinematography by Kemper that "captures the joy as well as the decay of a crowded city". ''
IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
'' delivered a good review, and considered Pacino's performance to be "spectacular, and achieves a kind of nuance and complexity that few actors from his or any other generation have before or since achieved". Meanwhile, the reviewer considered that the movie displayed the reason Cazale was "one of the great character actors of all time".
In popular culture
The 1977 Italian film ''Operazione Kappa: sparate a vista'' was loosely based on ''Dog Day Afternoon''. The 1987
Hong Kong action film
Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. Action films from Hong Kong have roots in Chinese culture, Chinese and Culture of Hong Kong, Hong Kong cultures including Chinese opera, storytelling an ...
''Yan man ying hung'' (''People's Hero'') was a remake of the film. For his audition on ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...
'', actor
Hank Azaria
Henry Albert Azaria ( ; born April 25, 1964) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is known for voicing many characters in the animated sitcom ''The Simpsons'' (1989–present), most notably Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, Sna ...
used an imitation voice based on Pacino's ''Dog Day Afternoon'' character. It was the base for the final voice of
Moe Szyslak
Moe Szyslak is a recurring character from the animated television series ''The Simpsons''. He is voiced by Hank Azaria and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". Moe is the proprietor and bartender of M ...
. A bank robbery featuring Sonny and Sal was featured on ''The Simpsons episode "
I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
"I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is the fourth episode of the nineteenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 14, 2007. For the second ti ...
". In 2006,
Marcia Jean Kurtz
Marcia Jean Kurtz is an American film, stage, and television actress and director. She has appeared in such films as ''The Panic in Needle Park'', '' In Her Shoes'', and '' Big Fan'', appearing as Miriam Douglas in ''Dog Day Afternoon'' and ''In ...
and Lionel Pina reprised their ''Dog Day Afternoon'' roles as Miriam Douglas and a pizza delivery man in the
heist thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
''
Inside Man
''Inside Man'' is a 2006 American heist thriller film directed by Spike Lee and written by Russell Gewirtz. It centers on an elaborate bank heist on Wall Street over a 24-hour period. The film stars Denzel Washington as Detective Keith Frazi ...
''.
The names of several television series episodes referenced the film, including ''
All in the Family
''All in the Family'' is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS for nine seasons, from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. Afterwards, it was continued with the spin-off series '' Archie Bunker's Place'', which picked up where ''All in ...
'', ''
Welcome Back, Kotter
''Welcome Back, Kotter'' is an American sitcom starring Gabe Kaplan as a high-school teacher in charge of a racially and ethnically diverse remedial education class called the "Sweathogs." Recorded in front of a live studio audience, the series ...
'', ''
Alice'', ''
St. Elsewhere'', ''
Sledge Hammer!
''Sledge Hammer!'' is an American satirical police sitcom produced by New World Television that ran for two seasons on ABC from September 23, 1986 to February 12, 1988. The series was created by Alan Spencer and stars David Rasche as Inspector ...
'', ''
Hill Street Blues
''Hill Street Blues'' is an American serial police procedural television series that aired on NBC in prime-time from January 15, 1981, to May 12, 1987, for 146 episodes. The show chronicles the lives of the staff of a single police station loca ...
'', ''
Perfect Strangers'', ''
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
''The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'' is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on the ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' books by authors A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard, ''The New Adventures'' was the fi ...
'', ''
The New Lassie
''The New Lassie'' is an American children and family oriented drama series which aired in first-run syndication from September 8, 1989 to February 15, 1992. The series stars Will Estes (then using his real name of Will Nipper) as Will McCullough, ...
'', ''
Kenan & Kel
''Kenan & Kel'' is an American Buddy film, buddy comedy sitcom created by Kim Bass. The show originally aired on the Nickelodeon network for four seasons, from July 15, 1996, to July 15, 2000. Set in Chicago, Illinois, the series follows mischiev ...
'', ''
King of the Hill
''King of the Hill'' is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It aired its original non-syndicated run from January 12, 1997, to September 13, 2009, and centers on the Hills, an Am ...
'', ''
Bob's Burgers
''Bob's Burgers'' is an American adult animated sitcom created by Loren Bouchard that premiered on Fox on January 9, 2011. The show centers on the Belcher family—parents Bob and Linda and their three children, Tina, Gene, and Louise—who r ...
'', ''
Supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
'', and ''
2 Broke Girls''. The shout "Attica! Attica!" was also reproduced in multiple films and television series.
Accolades
''Dog Day Afternoon'' was nominated for six
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
. Pierson received the
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Awards, Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Be ...
. The film was nominated for seven
Golden Globes
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
but won none. It received six
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cere ...
nominations: Pacino won
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Best or The Best may refer to:
People
* Best (surname), people with the surname Best
* Best (footballer, born 1968), retired Portuguese footballer
Companies and organizations
* Best & Co., an 1879–1971 clothing chain
* Best Lock Corporatio ...
and Allen
Best Editing. Pierson also received the
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written Drama
The Writers Guild Award for Best Written Drama was an award presented from 1949 to 1984 by the Writers Guild of America, after which it was discontinued.
Winners & Nominees
Notes
* The year indicates when the film was released. The awards w ...
, and Durning the
National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor
The National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor is one of the annual film awards given (since 1954) by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
Winners 1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Multiple ...
. At the San Sebastián International Film Festival Pacino won Best Actor, while the movie was nominated for Best Film.
The film ranked at number seventy on
AFI
AFI may refer to:
* ''Address-family identifier'', a 16 bit field of the Routing Information Protocol
* Ashton Fletcher Irwin, an Australian drummer
* AFI (band), an American rock band
** ''AFI'' (2004 album), a retrospective album by AFI rele ...
's ''
100 Years... 100 Thrills'' list. Meanwhile, the line "Attica! Attica!" placed at number eighty-six on ''
100 Years...100 Movie Quotes''. It was nominated for ''
100 Years...100 Movies'' in 1998 and 2007. In 2006, ''
Premiere
A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition.
A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its first ...
'' issued its "100 Greatest Performances of All Time". The magazine placed Pacino's performance as Sonny as the fourth-greatest ever. In 2012, the
Motion Picture Editors Guild
The Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG; IATSE Local 700) is the guild that represents freelance and staff motion picture film and television editors and other post-production professionals and story analysts throughout the United States. The Moti ...
listed ''Dog Day Afternoon'' as the twentieth best edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership.
See also
*
List of American films of 1975
A list of American films released in 1975.
'' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The highest-grossing film of 1975 was ''Jaws''.
__TOC__
A–B
C–G
H–M
N–S
T–Z
See also
* 1975 in the Uni ...
* ''
The Dog'', a 2013 documentary on the film
*
Heist film
The heist film or caper film is a subgenre of crime film focused on the planning, execution, and aftermath of a significant robbery.
One of the early defining heist films was ''The Asphalt Jungle'' (1950), which ''Film Genre 2000'' wrote "almo ...
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External links
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"The Boys in the Bank", by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Mooreat Google Books
* ''Dog Day Afternoon'' essay by Daniel Eagan In America's Film Legacy, 2009-2010: A Viewer's Guide To The 50 Landmark Movies Added To The National Film Registry In 2009–10, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2011, pages 143-14
{{Authority control
1975 films
1975 comedy films
1975 drama films
1970s black comedy films
1970s crime comedy-drama films
1970s heist films
1975 LGBT-related films
American black comedy films
American crime comedy-drama films
American films based on actual events
Bisexuality-related films
Male bisexuality in film
American heist films
American LGBT-related films
American neo-noir films
BAFTA winners (films)
Crime films based on actual events
American docudrama films
Drama films based on actual events
1970s English-language films
Films about bank robbery
Films about hostage takings
Films based on newspaper and magazine articles
Films à clef
Films directed by Sidney Lumet
Films produced by Martin Bregman
Films set in Brooklyn
Films set in New York City
Films set in 1972
Films shot in New York City
Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award
LGBT-related comedy-drama films
LGBT-related films based on actual events
Films about trans women
United States National Film Registry films
Warner Bros. films
1970s American films