Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 American biographical crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Martin Bregman and Martin Elfand. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, James Broderick and Charles Durning. The screenplay is written by Frank Pierson and is based on the Life magazine article "The Boys in the Bank" by P. F. Kluge and Thomas Moore. The feature chronicles the 1972 robbery and hostage situation led by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile at a Chase Manhattan branch in Brooklyn.
Elfand brought the article to Bregman's attention, who proceeded to negotiate a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures and clear the rights to use the story. Pierson conducted his research and wrote a script that centered on 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 plays. Filming took place between September and November 1974, and the production was finished three weeks ahead of schedule.
When theatrically released on September 21, 1975, Dog Day Afternoon was a critical and box-office success. The film was nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards, six BAFTAs (winning Best Actor for Pacino and Best Editing), and six Academy Awards (winning Best Original Screenplay). In 2009, Dog Day Afternoon was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress, and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Plot On August 22, 1972, first-time crook Sonny Wortzik and his friends 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 which left only $1,100 in cash at the bank. Sonny takes the bank's traveler's checks and burns the register in a trash can. When smoke raises suspicion outside, 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 threatens to kill the hostages. Sal assures Sonny he is ready to kill if necessary. Sonny releases an asthmatic security guard as a display of good faith. Moretti convinces Sonny to negotiate outside, and their dialogue culminates in Sonny's shouting "Attica!" to cheers from the crowd.
Sonny lists his demands: a vehicle to the airport so they can board a jet, pizzas for the hostages, and to see his wife at the bank. Sonny's lover Leon Shermer reveals the robbery was intended to pay for Leon's gender reassignment surgery and that Sonny has children with estranged wife Angie.
The bank's lights shut off when FBI agent Sheldon takes command of the scene. He refuses to discuss additional requests. Sheldon convinces Leon to talk to Sonny on the phone. Leon had been hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital after a suicide attempt. Leon turns down Sonny's offer to join in their escape. Sonny tells the police Leon wasn't involved with the robbery.
Sonny agrees to let the bank's director Mulvaney leave due to his diabetic shock, but he refuses to leave his employees. Sonny comes outside to talk to his mother, who fails to persuade him to surrender, then dictates his will to one of the hostages. He arranges for his life insurance to go to Angie and Leon.
Agent Murphy drives Sonny, Sal and the remaining hostages to Kennedy Airport in a limousine. As they wait in the car for their plane to taxi, Sal releases another hostage. Sheldon seizes Sonny's weapon, Murphy shoots Sal in the head with a hidden revolver, Sonny is immediately arrested, and the hostages are freed, while Sal's body is wheeled away.
In the aftermath of the film's events, Sonny is sentenced to twenty years in prison, leaving Angie and her children to subsist on welfare. Leon lives as a woman in New York City.
Cast
Al Pacino as Sonny Wortzik (based on John Wojtowicz) John Cazale as Sal Naturile (Salvatore Naturile) Charles Durning as Sergeant Eugene Moretti (Louis C. Cottell) Chris Sarandon as Leon Shermer (Elizabeth Eden) Penelope Allen as Sylvia 'Mouth' (Shirley "Mouth" Ball) Sully Boyar as Mulvaney (Robert Barrett) Susan Peretz as Angie (Carmen Wojtowicz) James Broderick as FBI Special Agent Sheldon (Richard J. Baker) Lance Henriksen as FBI Special Agent Murphy (James Murphy) Carol Kane as Jenny 'The Squirrel' Beulah Garrick as Margaret Sandra Kazan as Deborah Estelle Omens as Edna (Josephine Tuttino) Marcia Jean Kurtz as Miriam Amy Levitt as Maria Gary Springer as Stevie (Robert Westenberg) John Marriott as Howard (Calvin Jones) Philip Charles MacKenzie as the doctor Dick Anthony Williams as the Limo Driver / Undercover FBI Agent Judith Malina as Sonny's mother (Theresa Basso-Wojtowicz) Dominic Chianese as Sonny's father Edwin "Chu Chu" Malave as Maria's boyfriend
Production Background On August 22, 1972, John Wojtowicz, Salvatore Naturile and Robert Westenberg attempted to rob a branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank at 450 Avenue P in Gravesend, Brooklyn. 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 tipped him off. They entered the bank at 3:00 p.m. to discover that the armored truck had instead taken the 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.
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 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. Arthur Bell, an investigative journalist, 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, under the alias of "Littlejohn Basso". In his article published by The Village Voice, he laid out Wojtowicz's connection to pornographer Mike Umbers and proposed that the heist was organized by the Gambino crime family instead.
Development Life 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 or Al Pacino. The feature caught the attention of producer Martin Elfand. Elfand took it to Martin Bregman, who piqued the interest of Warner Bros. Pictures executive Richard Shepherd. Elfand hired Kluge and Moore to interview the people involved in the story. Before the script was written, Elfand wanted to ensure that 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, because 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 that 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 (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 $3.8 million (equivalent to $ million in ).
Frank Pierson was hired to write the screenplay. Aside from Kluge and Moore's research, Pierson conducted his own. He contacted journalist Randy Wicker, who covered the story of the heist for gay publications, and provided technical assistance regarding Manhattan's gay nightclub scene. Pierson decided that 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 because he had spent his cash in advance. Pierson reviewed his material and found that the unfulfilled promises Wojtowicz made was 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.
Tie-In Novel Pierson had not completed the script when author Leslie Waller was engaged to write the tie-in novel; thus Waller was given only a screen treatment and partial draft of the script from which to work. In order to give fullest dimension possible to characters and story, Waller did his own research and crafted his own approach as Pierson simultaneously and independently finished the script, which is why the novel and the film are often substantially different from one another. Originally published in hardcover by Delacorte Press and packaged to look like an original novel rather than one extrapolated in part from a screenplay, the book was released almost a year before the film, under the pseudonym "Patrick Mann." It was subsequently released in paperback by Dell Publishing just prior to the film's release.
Casting With the finished script, Martin Bregman met with director Sidney Lumet and star Al Pacino in London. Pacino, who, at the time, was represented by Bregman, agreed to play the role.
Pacino backed out, and Dustin Hoffman expressed interest. Bregman did not meet with Hoffman; he felt that Pacino could bring the "sensitivity" and "vulnerability" needed for the role. After more discussion, Pacino accepted the part but rejected it again. Bregman attributed it to Pacino's use of method acting and said that it "might have been a world [Pacino] did not want to explore". Bregman added that "no major star had ever played a gay".