On a snowy evening, I watched a movie about a hostage taking at a Brooklyn bank in the heat of a summer afternoon. Two hapless bank robbers (played by Al Pacino and the great John Cazale) find themselves stuck in the bank with a crowd of hostages. It is a great movie and Al Pacino is absolutely terrific. I find him a bit over the top now, but as a young man, he was an electrifying actor. The little twitches and the wild reactions that now seem like affectations were really new and radical back then and he seemed like an actor who would do anything to inhabit a role. Charles Durning plays a cop (one of the roles in which he is always cast) and he's great, too. Of course, Charles Durning is one of those actors who has always looked old, so no matter how good he is, he never gets to play the romantic lead -- one of the limits of physicality for actors. The scene in which Al Pacino comes out of the bank and realizes that the crowd is coming over to his side and starts chanting "Attica! Attica!" is an iconic scene of American filmdom. (You'll have to google "Attica prison riot" to get the reference.)
John Cazale only made six movies. He died of cancer after making "The Deer Hunter" and apparently, the director filmed his scenes first, because they all knew he didn't have long to live. He doesn't say much in "Dog Day Afternoon", but it is a compelling performance. Al Pacino's character, Sonny, is trying to figure out how to get them out of the bank safely, and he is negotiating with the police for a helicopter and says they want a jet to take them to . . . Algeria! Then he looks at Sal, John Cazale's character. "What country do you want to go to, Sal?" There is a long pause as Sal tries to think. "Wyoming," he says softly. Apparently, this was an improvisation of Cazale's. The script had the character say nothing. Sidney Lumet, the director, loved it and thought it was funny and sad. It is one of the most memorable moments of the movie. He was in "The Godfather" movies as well.
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