Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) is up against it in Dog Day Afternoon, directed by Sidney Lumet. He has a mountain of debts, an unhappy wife and a male lover who wants a sex-change operation. So he enlists the help of Sal (John Cazale) to rob a Brooklyn bank on a hot August day in 1972.
The heist goes horribly wrong and the two men wind up holding the staff and clients hostage while the incident snowballs into a city-wide ordeal.
Pacino delivers a mesmeric performance as the loser who begins to relish the notoriety he wins while negotiating with the cops in the sticky heat of a New York summer.
It is based on a real-life event (nothing surprises New Yorkers) and was tautly scripted by Frank Pierson, drawing on an article by B.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore.
The real-life Wortzik was sentenced to 20 years in prison, of which he served six and a half. He was paroled in 1978.
Sonny Wortzik
Al Pacino
Sal
John Cazale
Moretti
Charles Durning
Leon Shermer
Chris Sarandon
Mulvaney
Sully Boyar
Sylvia
Penelope Allen
Sheldon
James Broderick
Jenny
Carol Kane
Margaret
Beulah Garrick
Deborah
Sandra Kazan
Miriam
Marcia Jean Kurtz
Maria
Amy Levitt
Howard
John Marriott
Edna
Estelle Omens
Stevie
Gary Springer
Murphy
Lance Henriksen
Carmine
Carmine Foresta
Director
Sidney Lumet
