We’ve gotten some good advice, but what makes Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon Great?
Well, aside from the harmony of a talented cast and crew, the structure of the screenplay
is brilliant. Two hours and four minutes and not a single dull moment. Even though the
movie was based on true events, it is important to remember that this is a story that is being
told and it has to be entertaining, engaging, and dramatic just like any other movie.
Sidney Lumet: “I felt it was extremely important that whatever we do, even though we would
not do any invented thing or any false thing that we knew of, but that past that, we had
to make it work as a piece of drama. That the truth could only help us up to a point
and, after that, we were under the same obligation as any other artificially created piece. As
authentic as we were, as well as using all the naturalistic elements—no movie lighting,
no fake lighting outside—finally, it had to work as a drama. Finally, I had a camera
in there. Finally, it is an artificial creation—a script, a director, actors. It is not ‘the truth.’”
After a brief opening credits sequence detailing the setting—a hot summer day in Brooklyn—we
are thrust right into robbery. This movie is situational—the protagonists are unable
to walk away from the situation and are forced to deal with it head on. Other examples of
this would be movies like Die Hard and Cast Away. They can’t just leave the situation
regardless of the consequences. With Dog Day Afternoon, the backstory is going to come
out later so why not start with the with the situation immediately?
In a two-hour movie, act one will roughly be 30 minutes long, act two will be about
an hour, and act three will be the final 30 minutes. Nearly all movies separate each of
their acts in substantial ways—sometimes the acts are separated based on location such
as in Back to the Future Part III. Act one is in Hill Valley in 1955, Act two is in the
old west in 1885, and Act three is on the train. In Dog Day Afternoon, the act changes
are well defined and perfectly reinvent the situation, despite never changing the location.
The first act—the robbery—not only sets up the situation but the mood and lets us
know who we’re dealing with.
The screenwriter, Frank Pierson, uses the first act to paint Sonny and Sal as amateur
in every opportunity. Sonny has some knowledge of bank security from having worked in one,
but this is the reason that ultimately leads to his downfall.
Sal: “Why’d you have to light a fire?”
Act two—the stand off with the Moretti and the police—is the bulk of the film. So,
you have two robbers and some hostages in a bank surrounded by police, what do you do
for the next sixty pages? Well, it seems like the trick is to come up with a list of the
normal things that would arise from this situation—barricading the door, hostage exchange, talking to the
detective, the media circus, Sonny interviewed on tv, Sonny’s demands and plan to fly out
of the country, Leon brought in, and so on—and use each one as a way to reveal more about
the characters. Treat it as if you are telling Sonny’s story through each of these events.
Act three is a complete shift in mood and it is marked by the power being cut. It was
all fun and games, but now it is serious. Perhaps the most powerful shot in the whole
film is a shot of Moretti from act 3. In act two, Moretti and Sonny built a rapport. Moretti
comes across as someone empathizing with Sonny and wants to talk it out with him and keep
him content enough to keep the hostages safe. Sonny had the power. But now, when Sonny realizes
that the police are listening in on his phone call with Leon, Moretti stays silent and stone-faced.
Sonny: “Who’s on the phone now? Moretti? Moretti, is that you on the phone?”
Sonny has metaphorically and literally lost his power.
Imagine for a minute that you are writing a bank robbery scene and you write it straight,
ordinary, and filled with clichés. Three guys go into a bank, get into the vault, grab
the money, and leave.
Now, go back and complicate it. What do you come up with? The third robber chickens out
after the robbery has started. Someone is hiding under the desk. The phone rings. The
money is not there. Burning the ledger causes a lot of smoke. A neighboring businessman
notices the smoke. The phone rings again.
A brilliant and very quick setup and payoff is the constantly ringing phone. The phone
rings and there is the issue that Sal has to make sure that the manager doesn’t reveal
the robbery. This happens several times while other things are happening and we are completely
thrown when the manager says.
Manager: “It’s for you… telephone call… it’s for you.”
The first phone call is very important to the turn because it sets up the expectation
and then subverts it. If this happened on the first time the phone rang, we wouldn’t
know what to expect and the impact of the manager saying, “it’s for you” would
have been considerably diminished.
When something is expected, do the opposite. This also works wonders for comedic effect.
When the phone rings again, we are now expecting that it is the police calling back,
but we're fooled again.
Sonny: “Alright listen bastards: you keep away from this bank or we’re gonna start
throwing bodies out the front door, one at a time. You got that? … Who’s Jenny here?
The squirrel. You got a husband? Yeah, well he’s on the phone.”
These clever turns happen several times in the first act. The security guard has asthma.
The tellers want to use the bathroom before they are locked in and there is a girl in
the bathroom taking an extra long lunch break. The third guy chickens out and wants to take
the car to go home.
Sonny: “Stevie, don’t take the car.”
Stevie: “Well, how will I get home?”
Sonny: “Take the subway, we need the car! Stevie, the keys!”
One of the best things about Dog Day Afternoon is that there is plenty of humor, but there
are no jokes or gags. All of the humor arises out of the natural situation. It’s never
out of place or without context.
In the first act we learn a lot about Sonny. He’s the ring leader, he used to work in
a bank so, he is somewhat knowledgeable about his situation even though he is caught up in it.
Every bit of backstory and exposition is delivered within the context of what is happening and
utilizes and consolidates the events and the surroundings.
Sonny reveals his knowledge and experience when people are trying to manipulate him and
it comes across as perfectly natural.
Sonny: “No, not all of it! Look, I worked in a bank, I know the alarms.”
Sonny: “You’re a city cop, right? Robbing a bank is a federal offense. They got me on
kidnapping, armed robbery, they’re gonna bury me, man!”
Sonny: “Right, you ever been to prison? No. Well let’s talk about something you
fucking know about, okay?!”
We first learn about Leon from the television. What better excuse could you have for using
in-universe media for exposition when the media circus is a major theme of the film?
The film ebbs and flows in emotion, like music. There are big crescendos as well as very soft
and intimate moments.
Sidney Lumet: “One of the biggest problems in a movie like this— where the intensity
is so high— is to make sure that you are never repeating an emotion and that you’re
changing your- not just the tempo in terms of the time, but the tempo emotionally to
make sure that the laughter goes only so far and the drama goes only so far.”
Pierson also often teases events. Nothing happens right away. The police call but Sonny
hangs up. Leon arrives, but refuses to talk to Sonny. Sonny demands a plane, but it will
take a while to be ready and so on. This is a very effective tactic. Because it all takes
place in one location, there isn’t a whole lot of possibilities for interrupting plot
points to check in with something else happening in a separate location. This way we get a
variety of beats to anticipate, so that the plot never gets dull and never loses momentum.
It also helps set up expectations that can be subverted in the future.