Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

User Rating:

8.2/10   

Director:

Sidney Lumet

Writers:

P.F. Kluge (article) and
Thomas Moore (article) ...

Release Date:

21 September 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The robbery should have taken 10 minutes. 4 hours later, the bank was like a circus sideshow. 8 hours later, it was the hottest thing on live T.V. 12 hours later, it was all history. And it's all true

Plot:

A man robs a bank to pay for his lover's operation; it turns into a hostage situation and a media circus.

Plot Keywords:

Bank | Police | Airport | Media Circus | Siege

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 10 wins & 17 nominations

Cast

Al Pacino	...	Sonny Wortzik
John Cazale	...	Sal
Charles Durning	...	Det. Sgt. Eugene Moretti
Chris Sarandon	...	Leon Shermer
Sully Boyar	...	Mulvaney
Penelope Allen	...	Sylvia
James Broderick	...	Sheldon
Carol Kane	...	Jenny
Beulah Garrick	...	Margaret
Sandra Kazan	...	Deborah
Marcia Jean Kurtz	...	Miriam
Amy Levitt	...	Maria
John Marriott	...	Howard
Estelle Omens	...	Edna
Gary Springer	...	Stevie

Runtime:

125 min | Finland:131 min (1975)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Germany:12 (re-rating) (2006) | West Germany:16 (original rating) | UK:15 (video rating) | Canada:PG (Manitoba) | Canada:R (Ontario) | New Zealand:M (re-rating) (2006) | New Zealand:R18 (orginal rating) | Netherlands:MG6 | Portugal:M/18 | Netherlands:12 (original theatrical version) | South Korea:15 | Brazil:12 | Argentina:18 | Australia:M | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 | Norway:16 (1976) | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | USA:R | UK:X (original rating)

Filming Locations:

10th Street, Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Artists Entertainment Complex

Trivia:

The movie's line "Attica! Attica!" was voted as the #86 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).

Goofs:

Continuity: When the doctor speaks to Sonny after his phone conversation with Leon, he begins to reach for the phone in one shot, but in the next his arms are at his side. It is in the second shot that he reaches when he is supposed to.

Quotes:

Sonny: [talking to Sal, waiting for his wife to answer the phone] You know I can call anybody, they'd put it on the phone? The Pope, an astronaut, the wisest of the wise... Who do I have to call?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Amos & Andrew (1993)

Soundtrack:

Amoreena

Pacino - Lumet: as good as De Niro - Scorsese

Wow! The seventies were sure a great decade, just look at all the movies that battled for an Oscar in 1975 to have a good idea about it!This movie has everything anyone could wish in a great movie: a good script, even if the story is based on real events, great direction (Lumet knows how to deal with tense situations as he had already demonstrated it in his debut film 12 Angry Men), great acting (Pacino in his splendor, even better than in Godfather, Part I). The pacing is extremely good: it is very nervous and the camera moves a lot in the first third of the movie but then the whole thing seems to melt into a lifeless, tensionate and slow movement suggesting very well the whole situation as the bank robbery that was supposed to be fast and eventful turns into a hostage situation which is challenging and tensionate. The issue of homosexuality was very well dealt with, not preaching in any way, understanding and considerate, everything was far better than any politically correct angle we may find in today's movies. The movie is hard to place in a single genre, it is essentially a drama of the rejected (Sonny is a war veteran, a homosexual, an unemployed, and by the end of the movie an outcast), but it starts as a thriller and it touches elements of social satire( the family angle, the issue of police corruption and incompetence etc.), comedy and even absurd. This is a movie that I will surely see as soon as possible!