Taglines: Anything can happen during the dog days of summer.
Dog Day Afternoon movie storyline. Based upon a real-life story that happened in the early seventies in which the Chase Manhattan Bank in Gravesend, Brooklyn, was held siege by a gay bank robber determined to steal enough money for his male lover to undergo a sex change operation. On a hot summer afternoon, the First Savings Bank of Brooklyn is held up by Sonny and Sal, two down-and-out characters. Although the bank manager and female tellers agree not to interfere with the robbery,
Sonny finds that there’s actually nothing much to steal, as most of the cash has been picked up for the day. Sonny then gets an unexpected phone call from Police Captain Moretti, who tells him the place is surrounded by the city’s entire police force. Having few options under the circumstances, Sonny nervously bargains with Moretti, demanding safe escort to the airport and a plane out of the country in return for the bank employees’ safety.
Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 American crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, written by Frank Pierson and produced by Martin Bregman and Martin Elfand. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, Penelope Allen, James Broderick, Lance Henriksen and Carol Kane. The title refers to the sultry “dog days” of summer.
The film was inspired by P.F. Kluge’s article “The Boys in the Bank”,[2] which tells a story of a similar robbery of a Brooklyn bank by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturale on August 22, 1972. This article was published in Life in 1972.
The film received critical acclaim upon its September 1975 release by Warner Bros., some of which referred to its anti-establishment tone. Dog Day Afternoon was nominated for several Academy Awards and Golden Globe awards, and won one Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In 2009, it was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant and will be preserved in the National Film Archive.
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Penelope Allen, Sully Boyar, Carol Kane, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Amy Levitt, Estelle Omens
Screenplay by: Frank Pierson
Production Design by: Charles Bailey
Cinematography by: Victor J. Kemper
Film Editing by: Dede Allen
Costume Design by: Anna Hill Johnstone
Set Decoration by: Robert Drumheller
Art Direction by: Douglas Higgins
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: September 21, 1975
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