Behind the Scenes Dog Day Afternoon Lumet 1975 with Al Pacino and John Cazale

I didn't find it, an associate of mine found it. It was a piece done for Life magazine about this incident. And he brought it to me, he thought it would make a great film, and I agreed with him, and that's how it started. What was wonderful to me about it is it portrayed a life or a lifestyle that nobody had ever seen before. It was about a guy who was in love with another man. It was a gay relationship, but without the dirty jokes Well, it started with a call from Marty Alfond, a partner with Marty Bregman. Both of them agent managers and producers who were very closely associated with Al Pacino. I actually heard about it while it was taking place, The Bankroll. And then, later on, they actually quoted in the article that it looks like a part for Al Pacino to play. So everybody laughed about it, it was nothing. And sure enough, Marty Bregman and Marty Alfond got the screen rights to it. And they had read this Life magazine article and saw pictures of John Woodowitz, who was the real-life bank robber, and noted that he bore a startling resemblance to Al Pacino. So the light bulb went on, and they said, this is a picture that we could get made, and they sent me the stuff. And I said yes, and we were off and running. So I acquired this enormous library of tapes, and the newspaper reports, and so on, and began to try to figure out what kind of movie this should be. Because there are a lot of different ways you could tell this story. Nothing was ever quite the same in the way the police handled hostage situations after Dog Day Afternoon. It became, and it still is, part of police training for dealing with similar kinds of situations where the crowds are out of control and all the rest of it. And after a while, I decided that the best way to tell the story was from the point of view of the bank robber himself. Why he went there, how he conducted himself, and what the results were for that character. And made the decision that we would tell it entirely from inside the bank. In the meantime, I'm still trying. The one person I've not been able to reach was John Woodowitz, the Al Pacino character, the actual bank robber, because he was in a dispute over what he might get paid. And every time I went to the prison to interview him, they would send down the word that he doesn't want to see me. So after a while, I realized I was never going to get to see him. So I then sat down and tried to think about what sort of a character is John Woodowitz? Everybody that I could reach, how did they see John Woodowitz? What kind of a character was he in their minds? And it was also contradictory. It was like every one of them knew a different person and described a different person, and I grew very depressed. I was in such a state of desperation that I was about to call my agent and ask him to just drop the whole thing, but by then I'd spent the advance, and I didn't have the money to pay it back, so I was kind of stuck. So I went back to see if there was one element in common that I could see that everybody had about John. Well, basically, he would be looking at you, and he would say, I'll take care of you, I'll make you happy. Now I knew how I could write it, because I knew what a character like that would be. All the elements now were cooking, and just after Christmas, I finished. Sidney was in London, so Al and I and Marty Bregman, Marty Alphon all flew to London. We went to Sidney's apartment, and I handed him the screenplay, and he said, what's it about? And I said, it's about a guy who imagines that he's a magician who can make everybody happy and whole, but when he fails, as he inevitably does, he gets instead anger, rage, and rejection. He said, oh, well, that sounds interesting. I guess I'd better read it. And Al said, I guess I'd better read it too. And the next morning, Al said, it's a great screenplay, I love it, it's a terrific story, but I'm not going to do it. I decided to play it, and then I had second thoughts about it. Basically, I really didn't want to work. Because I knew with Sidney Lumet, you sort of have to work. I mean, he really puts you in there and works you. And at the time, I just thought, why would I want to do this now? I'm tired, I want to go back on the stage eventually. So they understood that, and they were very gracious. And I thought it was over, and I wished them well with it, of course. I thought it was a good project, a really great project. But it wasn't for me, as I put it. I didn't quite see me in that part anyway. That's how it is with an actor sometimes, you just don't see yourself in something until you start to engage and try to find it. And it's either there or it isn't. And then we're going to get another actor. And then Bregman, very intelligently, called me and said, Al, I think you should read it again. I said, Marty, there's just no way I'm going to do this thing. He said, please, as a friend, read it cover to cover, for me. I said, okay, I'll do it. So I read it, and it became so clear to me. I thought, especially having been reading scripts, you keep getting scripts all the time, and they're never up to that kind of quality, that intensity, that writing and characters, all of these characters in this piece. Sidney's a great director, of course, but he's also a director who knows how to put actors together in a space and rehearse them. Not many directors can do that. And he is rehearsing you with the camera in mind, with the visual in mind, because that's what he is. He's a film director, he's not a stage director, and yet he crosses the line and he does both. And the idea was that they would begin the rehearsals and maybe 10 days into the rehearsal and so on, I would fly back and watch what was happening and we would do whatever repair or finish the screenplay. So by the end of the rehearsal period, my work was done. So I went down to the soundstage on the first day and just wished everybody well and took off, because they really didn't need me. You know, Sidney is terrific, and if he had needed me, I knew that he would call me and I could come back. I got no calls. We had had a very good working experience on Serpico, Al and Marty and I. So I read the script, let's do it, and off we go. It was quite simple, actually. I decided on Sidney Lumet because he was gifted and because he'd worked New York and because we had a good relationship, and he's a very gifted director. In July, the whole movie had been cast, and largely cast from among Al's sort of repertory theater, the actors that he worked with in New York, including John Cazale, who was a very close friend and with whom he collaborated so brilliantly in The Godfather and other pictures. Cazale was playing the part of Sal, who in real life was an extremely confused, very, very young and naive kid that John Woodowitz had picked up in the village. And nobody knew much about the real character, and I described him in the script as a 15-year-old Botticelli angel. And when I look at Cazale, he is the furthest from that picture. And I learned a great lesson on that movie because he's written completely differently. He's written to be kind of a real smart-ass street kid. And Al said, Sidney, please, I beg you, read John Cazale for her. John came in, and when John came in, I was so discouraged, I can't tell you. Al's out of his mind. This guy looks 30, 32. It's the last thing I want in this part. And I hadn't seen him in Godfather 1. I hadn't seen the picture at that time. And then he read. And my heart broke. It was tough at first to sell John, but once Sidney got to see him read and work with me, and I knew John, I worked with him on stage, and I knew him very, very well. But really, what gave us the juice, so to speak, was that we thought of these 2 people as not knowing each other, having spent so little time together, and then being thrown into a situation this intense. Maybe, to me, the funniest, saddest line in the movie, when the 2 of them, he and Al are sitting there, and they're talking about where they want to go, and Al says to him, so where do you want to go, Sal? And then there's this long pause, and John says, just on the take. He had never done it before. Wyoming. I had to do that so I didn't ruin the take because it was so funny and yet so heartbreaking. And that came from Cazale. Al got me that part, but Sidney, I don't think, knew who I was because he wanted me to play another part, the part of the bank manager. So coming out, I ran into Al, and he said, how do you like the part? And I said, well, it's, you know, he said, it's one of the leads. I said, oh, and then we got confused here. So he went back and he said, this is the guy for the detective. And Sidney said, okay, so that's how I got it. What I wanted, clearly, was the difference between a street cop and a suit. And Charles is a wonderful actor, but he was shooting a picture with Bob Wise in California at the same time that he was shooting this. And Bob and I are probably the only two directors who are organized enough and would have trusted each other enough to say yes to it because I had to know that on Thursday at 11 o'clock, Charlie would be there. And Wise had to know that the following Tuesday at 4 o'clock, he'd be back in California. And it worked out flawlessly. Broderick had been in so many TV shows. He was one of my favorite actors because to me, he always had a very romantic quality, actually. And that lovely Irish lyrical face, I think he would have been a wonderful, wonderful leading man. But I knew how superb a character actor he was. He's a human searchlight. Never moves quickly, just sweeps from corner to corner and has taken everything in. At the time Dog Day Afternoon was filmed, I was basically a theater actor. I had never done a movie before. And I looked at this script, and I thought, this is one of the great scripts I think I've ever read. And immediately something clicked, and I had a real sort of strong kind of take on the character. So I went in and auditioned with Al Pacino and Sidney Lumet. For the part of Leon, we read a lot of actors, and Al always read with him because it was important for me to see how the two came together. And Chris came in and read, and while he was reading, we were looking at each other because we knew we had it. This was the one. Chris Sarandon was, again, another, you know, we just sort of got lucky with Chris. He was just there. After the audition was done, Sidney came to me and he said, we want you to come back, but the next time, a little less Blanche DuBois, a little more Queen's Housewife. And that was the sort of key that unlocked the character. During the time that I was sort of coming up with the sort of physicality of the character, I, during the day, would just sort of pat around the house in a pair of clogs, which sort of gave me the feeling of being a little kind of elevated and on heels. And I let my fingernails grow, and I thought, okay, you're going to do it, you've got to go all the way. So I plucked my eyebrows, and I thought, that's what I'll do. I'll go into Manhattan, and I'll go with my plucked eyebrows, and I'll tease my hair, and I'll put on a little eye makeup and just kind of absorb the stares of people in the streets. And I come into Manhattan, I'm in my get-up, and I start walking down the street, and I literally go into newsstands, into vegetable markets, not a sidelong glance. New York is a city that absorbs everything. Nothing phases New Yorkers. I only wanted to see how close they were to themselves, how they used themselves. I didn't want characters. I said to the cast, I'm not interested in the real bank teller who did this or the real manager who did that. I don't know them. I said, I do know all of you, and even though you've got other names, it's you. You won't have any costumes. I want you to wear your own clothes. You get $2 a day more for using your own clothes. That it was a way of making sure that the sensationalism of the subject matter didn't become an obstacle to an audience's connection with the movie. It was an interesting film because it was a group of actors who'd all worked together in a theater or something, but they all seemed to have a rapport, and Sidney rehearses a lot, and so the bank building became their home for a long period of time, and they were just a group that worked so well together. Pacino and I were friends, and when they cast the movie, I wanted to go up for the gay guy that was the boyfriend, and I went and auditioned, and Sidney went, No, Lance, no, this is not going to work. This ain't going to happen. Then they offered me Murphy, which is the FBI guy. But this was my first film, and also we did something that I learned from Sidney, which was he marked out every location on a ballroom floor, and no matter how small the row was, we all came there and sat through the whole movie to know right where we were going to be at. And it was like giving you not only respect, but a gift of you're part of this, man. There is no small part. It's collective. One of the most interesting things, about the 3rd day of rehearsal, one of the actors, I forgot who, said, Well, Sidney, you've talked so much about using ourselves in these parts, and I said, Well, what about words? Can we use our own words? I said, For now, yes. In fact, I said, Let's take it further. For these next few days, let's improvise everything. Let's not use the script at all. Now, I've never done this in my life. I'm not a great believer in improvisation. What happened was the results were so rich right away that I brought my sound man in, and we had a boom as the actors were moving, and we recorded the improvisations. And Frank and I and Bregman, we would sit, and we'd compose the script out of the improvisations, so that by the time we began shooting, we had a fairly new script of the dialogue. It's a nice way to work sometimes. I don't recommend it all the time, but when you have a scene that you're having a little difficulty with, it's not a bad idea to put actors who are somewhat there together in a room and have them improvise, tape it, and then write a scene from it. I think that Al was as concerned, if not more concerned, than I was about the subject matter. He was the one at greatest risk. By the time this picture had come out, he was now a major star. And no major star that I know of had ever played a gay man. And Al is one of the few actors I know who is wonderful at rushes. He can look at himself without any self-consciousness and with a genuinely objective point of view. And he leaned over to me, he said, the moustache has got to go, can we redo the first day's shooting? And we did. I needed an empty building so we could build the bank inside the building. With that many pages inside the bank, I needed what we call wild walls, which is the ability to take a wall out so I could put the camera in. And something empty across the street. So the requisites were very needy, and we found it like that. The bank itself was an old automotive repair shop, and it had a lift in the floor, you know, all of that stuff, which had to be gotten rid of, of course. It was a perfect opportunity. I couldn't ask for a better way to begin a picture, to be able to talk to the production designer with a store that was going to be completely renovated before we ever started production. The one problem with it was that it was on a street with a bus line. But there again in those days, and I think still today, the city is wonderfully cooperative about trying to help you out. So they just rerouted the buses. They just put it one block up. So we had our back lot and our studio on a real street in Brooklyn. It created a complete world where when you entered that set, the only time you knew you were on a movie set is when you went upstairs to the bank and there was a sort of big open space where there were tables for catering and production offices and what have you. Other than that, when you walked on that street, you thought you were in the street in Park Slope where this event took place. It's a very difficult picture because it all takes place in one day. It's supposed to be the hottest day of the summer, a dog day afternoon in the summer, except that we shot it in the fall, and we had particular problems aside from the weather. Sometimes in the morning Pacino would come out of the bank and you could see his breath when it's supposed to be the middle of August. It was so cold you could see breath. Obviously we couldn't have that, and so the solution is very simple. You just put ice in the actor's mouth so that their mouth gets colder, and therefore you don't have the temperature change when the breath comes out. It's not warm breath anymore, it's cold breath, and therefore you don't get the smoke. And Sidney has a way of directing you where he literally moves you around, and by doing so, you're in the situation and you're in the event and it's taking place. He just staged it, and all you had to do was follow his direction, and you felt the bank robbery was taking place. That's how thought out he did it. The first obligation becomes, in the making of that movie, hey, folks, this really happened. And immediately, for example, it affected totally the photographic style so that there was no artificial light, artificial in the sense of the way a set is usually lit. The bank was nothing but fluorescence, and all we did was add more fluorescence to get an exposure. And if I needed more of what we call fill light, if I was doing a close-up and I wanted more light on the actor's face, we would simply roll up a fluorescence of a smaller wattage to give us what we call a fill light. I believe that we hired somewhere between 300 and 400 extras for the street scene, some of them cops, some of them crowd, and so on, and we made them very specific. There were people living across the street, and we went to them in advance and said, listen, do you want to watch it? You're free to watch. Open your window and watch. Or would you like us to move you and put you up at a hotel? Which we were ready to do. Almost everybody chose to stay. Al was just wonderful on the first take. And he reached the end of it, and he just slumped. He was exhausted. And I said, Al, we're going back to the first conversation. Chris, Susan, can you hear me? I'm going for take two. And Al looked at me. I thought he was going to kill me. And I said, Al, now, action. And he did that, and just started automatically, and it was just brilliant. It was just so thrilling. And I think it's one of the reasons why people identified with it. Because this wasn't a relationship about a drag queen and his boyfriend. This was a relationship of two people who were trying to come to grips with what is wrong in their relationship. By that time, I think I was so in it that I wasn't even operating from being aware that I was doing something or not doing it. I never knew where the camera was, which is the way I liked it at the time. But I found that throughout the years, the great film actors have understood the camera and played for it. And it's a good relationship to have. With John Casals in the van, I'll never forget as long as I live, I had to turn and shoot him. And John was a friend. I loved the guy. He was a great guy. And I turned and looked at him and we started laughing because of the tension of what was going to come. We knew I was going to shoot him. And we laughed for literally an hour. We couldn't stop. It was like an infection. He would stop laughing and then I would turn and I'd laugh and then I'd start. And meanwhile, they're rigging the hood for this shot to go do it. And luckily, it took them almost an hour to set it all up. That's the wonder about working with actors like Penny Allen and John Casals and people like that, because they're always challenging the situation and the scene. They're always looking for a way to explore it and to see how far it can go and how dramatic and theatrical and real it can be. And that's what's really fun because you never know until you try.