Al Pacino Fought To Get A Scene Cut From Dog Day Afternoon

In Sidney Lumet’s concise 1975 classic “Dog Day Afternoon,” based on the 1972 Life Magazine biography “The Boys in the Bank,” , Al Pacino plays Sonny Walzik, the leader of the first bank robbery team. He and his cronies, including Sal (John Cazale) and Stevie (Gary Springer), set their sights on the First Brooklyn Savings Bank, thinking they could get in and out with minimal fuss and lots of cash. But everything quickly goes awry. Stevie flees the scene, leaving his compatriots behind, but Sonny learns that the daily pickup has already been made and only $1,100 in cash remains.

Things only snowballed from there. A small fire breaks out in the bank and the police are called, leaving Sonny trapped inside the bank and forced into a hostage situation. Sonny, who is not a career criminal, remains suspicious of all cops considering the infamous Attica prison riot occurred less than a year ago. As a reminder to our readers, guards killed 43 inmates in this riot, making it the deadliest prison riot in history. Sonny obviously doesn’t want to get killed by a cop yelling “Attica! Attica!” to the assembled crowd of onlookers (itself a famous moment improvised by Pacino).

But why did Sonny decide to rob a bank? Apparently his transgender girlfriend, who lives by the name Leon (Chris Sarandon), needed money for gender reassignment surgery. Sonny has a wife, Angie (Susan Peretz), and children, but they are estranged. After a while, Sonny realizes that the situation is beyond his control and that his death might at least lead to insurance money for his wife and children and the cost of his girlfriend’s surgery.

Although Sonny and Leon mainly communicate from a distance, there was a scene in the film’s script where the two kiss in person with Leon dressed as Marilyn Monroe. According to Pacino’s new autobiography, “Sonny Boy,” (via entertainment weekly), The actor opposed the drug scene, feeling it was in bad taste. Essentially, Pacino took it as an absurd, cartoonish interpretation of Leon that deviated greatly from the realistic situation.

It should be noted that Leon is based on the real-life Elizabeth Eden, while Sonny is based on the real-life bank robber John Wojtowicz. Although John and Elizabeth married in a public ceremony in 1971, Wojtowicz certainly maintained a bank in Brooklyn, at least in part to purchase his wife’s sex reassignment surgery. The money he received from making “Dog Day Afternoon” ended up paying for Eden’s surgery.

In an early draft of the film’s script, screenwriter Frank Pearson wrote a scene in which Leon, dressed as Marilyn Monroe, comes to the bank to appease Sonny and the two share a big kiss in front of an audience. . Pacino read the scene and felt it inappropriately glorified Wotwith and Eden’s real-life relationship. Many might point out that “Dog Day Afternoon” stays firmly in a relatable and thoroughly stressful situation, and derives its artistic strength from its realism. Casting Leon as a full-fledged drag performer would make a queer character too much of a caricature. “Not only was it not true, it was an exaggeration,” Pacino wrote, adding, “It was some kind of comedic production that trivialized the situation.”

Pacino recalled his conversation with Lumet, explaining:

“We’re dealing with human beings, whether they’re straight or gay. We’re just human beings. I’m like, why are we talking about this? Would the police have allowed such a show? […] In our movie, the police allow Sonny and Leon to virtually say goodbye over the phone. After all, this movie is based on a true story, and when we looked into it, we found out that they were on the phone. they didn’t kiss. They didn’t even touch. No one was dressed up as Marilyn Monroe. I had never felt so depressed. ”

Instead, Pacino and Sarandon co-wrote the scenes together.

Pacino said he and Sarandon spent a lot of time rehearsing together and improvising the characters’ dialogue. When the time came for the two actors to rehearse the fateful phone call, they both improvised the entire scene, much to Lumet’s blessing. The script for “Dog Day Afternoon” was then backward engineered to match what they said and only slightly tidied up for clarity.

Ever since “Dog Day Afternoon” was released, many viewers and critics have theorized about how Sony would define their sexuality. He married a cisgender woman, broke up with her, and married a trans woman who still mostly lives as a man. Was Sonny bisexual? However, Pacino is less concerned with the labels people use and more focused on the humanity of his characters. He was intrigued by Sonny’s emotional journey and had no idea how “daring” it would be to play a queer character. He just played a character who was in love. The actor said:

“My interpretation of the script is that he’s a man with a wife and kids who happens to have an affair with someone who identifies as female, which today would be understood as transgender. But… Knowing him, I didn’t think so.” It didn’t excite me or make me uncomfortable. […] perhaps [in 1975] It was unusual for Hollywood movie protagonists to be gay or homosexual and to be treated as heroic or deserving of the audience’s affection, but I understand that such things do not enter into my consideration. I need to have it. ”

Of course, that’s a good attitude.