Hi everybody, Tyler here. I'm standing in the exact spot where
Al Pacino said his famous 'Attica' line in Sydney Lumet's 1975 classic Dog Day Afternoon.
Now, right behind me this is where the bank was
and they actually filmed inside this building right here it looks like it's
been converted to apartments
but back in the back in 1975 this was an the old warehouse
and they actually built the set inside it was not a real bank.
I needed an empty building so we could build the bank inside the building
and something empty across the street
to the requisites were very needy and we found it... like that
They constructed the set inside so they were able to
make it so that they can move the walls away when they wanted to get a
different angle so it actually looked so real, it looked so much like a real bank
that people actually were walking in trying to open accounts in the bank
and they had to tell them
you know this this is actually not a real bank, right?
Closing time. Want in?
Yes sir.
So the main difference that you'll notice
the the way this street looks between 1975 and today
is all these trees here there are no trees in the movie
it was all completely clear
the bank and stuff was obviously there and it was all painted white
you see in these bay windows up ontop there that they had their production
offices up there so they were actually able to
work on the script and stuff like that pre-production and all that kind of stuff
and then come right back down in into the bank and film
the scenes. So, Lumet actually decided to film inside this building construct a set in there
because he wanted to be able to see out the window and onto the street where there was
the police the crowd and all the spectators
you can see across the street still a barber shop there
it looks like it's not the same barber shop but it's still a barbershop nonetheless
and you can see that the the actual facade of the building
is is pretty much the same as it was in 1975
and if you look at the building to the left
there you can see there used to be a
fire escape. There used to be a fire escape there
which was removed and but it does appear in the film. So, Moretti
and all the confrontations took place right here on the street right here on
the sidewalk where I'm standing right now
and right here is the bank. Perhaps the most important reason
why Lumet chose to film the interiors inside this actual building
was that he was able to move seamlessly from interior to exterior
they were able to come right out the front door with the camera
and come right out to all of the police,
Moretti, the spectators,
and of course the barbershop whenever they needed to.
Sonny: Sal!
Mulvaney: Sonny, he's serious! Sonny, he means it!
Sonny: Sal! It's alright.
And this street is actually on a bus line, so you can see
this bus right here
which complicated things for the filming but the city actually rerouted
the bus is one street over
so they were able to not have their
shoot disrupted. So they were able to move seamlessly from
interior to exterior during the shoot but they actually shot
all of the exteriors first and they did that
in continuity and then they went in and did the interiors
in continuity so there are a couple shots
that they were able to do that
they did during the exterior shooting days where they
came they went into the building came out
and stuff like that with camera actually comes out the front door looks around and see
all the crowd everything
since it was all based on a true story Lumet felt obligated to present it as such
and it affected the way he shot the film they didn't use lights for a lot of the scenes
the interiors were fluorescent lights just had more to get an exposure
if they needed a fill-light for a close-up they just used a lower wattage fluorescent light
because they were not using real bank
the production designer was able to choose where to install the emergency
lights for when the police cut the power
and they augmented them to be brighter so that the camera could get an exposure.
But you'll see that is still very dark in those scenes
and Lumet wanted it that way to keep it realistic. This building behind me
the one with the white front is actually almost exactly the same as it was in 1975
now this is where the start of the bank was
and you can see these bay windows up on top here are pretty much exactly the
same as they were
back in 1975 as well they are a different color a
but it's a very recognizable location
you can obviously tell that you're in the spot where they filmed Dog Day Afternoon
for the exterior shots be used only natural lighting that includes the night shots
they use the same police lights
that they had in the film too light the scenes and they were actually
augmented to be slightly bigger than normal police lights
and they chose a -- this use to have
this used to be all painted white and they chose a
building with the white paint on it specifically so that they could bounce the light
off of the front of the building too light the scene. So you'll see in the scene
where my Sonny is saying goodbye to his mother
she's actually only being lit by
the light being bounced off a building an onto her face
and the crowd was in this intersection here and you'll see the street lights they actually
reinforce the street lights to be much brighter so that they could get
the crowd lit up for when they had shots of the the crowd during the night scenes
this was all shot on film obviously in the needed to get exposure so they had
to make sure that there was enough light.
This intersection behind me is where one part of the crowd was situated this is
actually where Leon first comes up
comes up from across the bridge in a police car and gets out right around here
and they went through painstaking measures to make sure that the
continuity was correct with the crowd. They even
went as far as making sure that each crowd member knew
what side of the block they were gonna be on and
what's even cooler is that the sound man actually
made sure to have the right side of the crowd coming out the right
channel the speaker and left side coming out left channel the speaker
So, this barber shop behind me is actually the same
barber shop it's owned by different people now but they actually
shot all of the scenes
for the police headquarters in the barbershop in this actual building
and that includes Leon's
phone conversation the the stuff with Moretti
all that was shot right here and if you look right out here
they had the police car's setup right over here
and they had the the FBI agents and all them were
right behind here. Straight in front of me is the
bank so it really worked out to have these two locations directly across the
street from each other
Okay, so the other crowd was located right over here
in this intersection and they actually hired three hundred actors to play the
the crowd in the movie many of them were Off-Broadway actors
and over the course of filming a lot of people showed up civilians to just watch
the movie the made
and so Lumet actually featured them in the movie as
crowd members so you'll see by the end of the movie there's like
almost 1200 people there and so Lumet actually had the
actors that were playing crowd, the crowd
coach and kind of help the civilians
let them know what to chant and how to react to different situations and stuf like that
to kind of keep things going with the movie
and a fun fact: one of the gay rights activist that comes out to support Sonny
towards the end of the film
is a 15-year-old Harvey Firestein. I haven't been able to locate him though.
Another thing that's interesting is that all the police that are featured in the movie are actors
Now they did actually have a real police on set just to make sure that the crowd
didn't get out of hand while they were filming
I but they were not features and moving and
the captain the police he actually had to go to Lumet
and to let him know that he saw-- he was noticing that a lot of the
actors playing the police were sitting on the ground, smoking,
eating and stuff like that in between takes and he thought that
it reflected poorly on the police department so he had Lumet make sure
that none of the actors
they were playing police did that. So what's interesting is that
all the police in the movie they
they were not able to do that but all the other extras that were hired on
to the movie-- they were able to sit on the ground and smoke and all that kind of stuff
in between takes and the main reason for that is because
the costumes and stuff so good that nobody could tell the difference between
the actual police that were doing crowd control
and the police the extras that we're playing
police officers. So they actually did a fair amount a rehearsal inside the bank set
in the weeks leading up to the production. "It created a
complete world where when you enter
that set the only time you knew you were on a movie set is when you went
upstairs the bank and there was a
sort of big open space where there were tables for catering
and other production offices and what-have-you other than that
when you walked on that street you thought you were in the street
Park Slope where this event took place." You can see is very very overcast
today it's actually kinda cold out
but when this was filmed it was actually very cold out his supposed to take place
in August it was supposed to be a Dog Day Afternoon
supposed to be one of the hottest days of the year but, in fact, they shot it in
September and it was very cold out, in fact, so cold that you can see Pacino's
breath as he was talking in the exterior scenes
so what they did to counteract this was they had him in between takes
put ice cubes in his mouth and that would lower the temperature of his mouth
so that you couldn't see his breath. It would, it would lower temperature
down to being the same temperatures with outside so you wouldn't see
any steam coming out his mouth. Now what is great about this location
is that is essentially two opposing sides the cops and robbers situated
across from each other
this works really well structurally because it gives us three distinct
locations to cycle between
the bank, the street, and the barbershop to keep the pace of the film without
spending too much time in any one place.
And nearly every time we return to one of these locations, it is under new and fresh circumstances.