Sonny (Al Pacino) can’t believe what he got himself into in DOG DAY AFTERNOON
DOG DAY AFTERNOON (Sidney Lumet, 1975) and SERPICO (Sidney Lumet, 1973)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Serpico: Sunday, December 2, 3:45; Saturday, December 8, 9:00, Monday, December 10, 6:30
Dog Day Afternoon: Monday, December 3, 9:00; Thursday, December 6, 6:45; Saturday, December 8, 4:00
Series runs through December 10
212-505-5181
anthologyfilmarchives.org
Anthology Film Archives’ “From the Pen of . . .” series, honoring some of the great cinema scribes and source writers, continues with a pair of tense, powerful fact-based dramas directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Bronx native Al Pacino that helped define the 1970s, both onscreen and off. In Dog Day Afternoon, one of the most bizarre bank robberies gone wrong you’ll ever see, Pacino stars as Sonny, a confused young man desperate to get money to pay for his boyfriend’s (Chris Sarandon) sex-change operation. But things don’t go quite as planned, and soon Sonny is leading the gathered crowd in chants of “Attica! Attica!” while his partner, Sal (John Cazale), wants a plane to take them to Wyoming and Det. Moretti (Charles Durning) is trying to get them to surrender without hurting anyone, primarily themselves. Written by Frank Pierson — who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay — Dog Day Afternoon is a blistering, funny, biting commentary on mid-’70s New York as well as a fascinating character study of a deeply conflicted man. In Serpico, another gritty, realistic drama, Pacino gives an unforgettable performance as an undercover cop single-handedly trying to end the rampant corruption that has spread like a disease throughout the NYPD. When his fellow officers and supposed friends turn their back on him, he is left on his own, vulnerable but still committed, risking both his career and his life to do what he thinks is right. Based on Peter Maas’s book, Serpico earned a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination for Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler. Pacino is explosive in both films, playing two very different protagonists on different sides of the law yet similar in so many ways. The series runs through December 10 with such other films as Midnight Cowboy, Cat Ballou, French Connection II, and The Seven-Ups.