Movies I've Watched Lately, Some of Which I Liked Greatly

Stefania Sandrelli in I Knew Her Well

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Lumet. I’ve written about DDA numerous times on the blog so long time readers (Mary Ellen Moskowitz of Bismarck, South Dakota) know of my deep affection for this film. I refer you to this post for more. A truly great film only gets better with time. I’ve got some complaints about the casting in some of the films mentioned below but you couldn’t begin to imagine anyone better in any of the cast of DDA. Of course Al Pacino as Sonny gives a master class in acting in one of his greatest roles but John Cazale, his blinkered partner in crime, Charles Durning, the New York cop in charge, Penelope Allen, the lead teller, Sully Boyar, the bank manager and Chris Sarandon one of Sonny’s wives couldn’t have been improved upon. Sidney Lumet’s direction deserves plaudits and this is one of the best edited films you’ll ever see thanks to Dede Allen who also edited such films as Reds, Bonnie and Clyde, The Hustler, Wonder Boys, Serpico and Little Big Man — not too shabby.

Traveling Saleslady (1935) Enright and Make Me a Star (1932) Beaudine. Two from Joan Blondell. The former is everything (almost) that you want out of Blondell picture. You get Blondell, a woman who was simultaneously cute and sexy as a perky young woman wise-cracking her way through life getting the better of any man who crosses her path. Blondell plays the daughter of a toothpaste company owner (ably played by the always reliable Grant Mitchell). She strikes out on her own when Dad won’t give her a job, working for a competitor and becoming an incredible success. The only problem was that her leading man was played by William Garage (who?) a fine supporting player but no romantic lead. Fredric March would have been perfect and others such as Robert Montgomery or Joel McCrea would have done nicely. Make Me a Star was a terrible film. The missus and I can’t figure out how we managed to watch a full half hour of it before calling it quits. The pacing was….well, pretty much non-existent. Under the incompetent direction of William Beaudine, the film had all the pep and excitement of a funeral. Blondell was billed as the lead but the main character was played by Stuart Erwin who could better carry a boulder than a film. His acting perfectly fit the film’s ponderous pace. What a dog!

Mirror (1975) Tarkovsky. This was my fourth viewing and I still have trouble making heads or tails out of much of it. I love it all the same. Like Stalker, another favorite of mine from the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, Mirror is not exactly inaccessible but it is hard to unlock. This only enhances the joy of watching it. It’s a challenge but one well worth taking on because of the stunning and mysterious visuals. It is ostensibly the story of a dying man in his forties remembering moments in his life. Margarita Terekhova as his young mother is utterly beguiling, as is the film.

The Strange One (1957 Garfein. It’s the name of the film and it describes it as well. The Strange One is set in a military school where a sadistic upper classman browbeats freshman and sets up a major’s son for expulsion. Ben Gazzarra in his film debut is magnetic in the lead role as we quickly come to despise him. It’s a compelling story and yet an unpleasant one and by the end one is left wondering what the point was. Do we learn anything from this story of cruelty and the fate of the main character? Are their lessons for our or its time? Not obvious ones. I’m not sure what to make of The Strange One. It was like watching a nasty argument, but one you couldn’t turn away from.

I Knew Her Well (1965) Pietrangeli. This under appreciated (at least in the U.S.) gem from Italy tells us the story of an aspiring young model and actress. She is on the cusp of fame but reaching the highest heights is a big leap requiring a lot of luck. Will she make it? We see her life in a series of vignettes in which we both learn about the difficulties of achieving stardom — the disappointments, the embarrassments, the sacrifices and the joys of being young, beautiful and talented enough to draw attention. Our protagonist goes to nightclubs, works in movie houses, models during boxing matches, attends lavish star-studded parties, goes on dates. She also languishes in her apartment listening to an endless string of .45s. We see her as a pratfall prone naif but also as a sweet and caring young woman, perhaps too sincere for the world she seeks to enter. The movie’s ending hits hard but is somehow inevitable. The then 19-year-old Stefania Sandrelli stars and she is an utterly enchanting delight who it’s impossible not to fall in love with.

The Goddess (1958) Cromwell. We end with yet another disastrous bit of casting, and in the lead role, no less. Here the great stage actress Kim Stanley plays a woman who emerges from humble and unhappy beginnings to become a beloved actress and sex symbol. Stanley plays Emily Ann Faulkner from ages 16 through 31. The problem, especially in the early scenes, is that Stanley was 33 at the time and looked closer to 43. Couldn’t they have at least tried to make her younger? Perhaps more significantly, Stanley was no great beauty and there’s never any hint of sexuality, smoldering or otherwise, in her performance. And we’re supposed to believe she’s worshipped by fans the world over? It might have helped if they’d shown her acting. Adding to this, Stanley and some of the other cast absolutely chew up the scenery whenever given a big scene. The screenplay is perfectly fine which is not surprising given that it was written by the great Paddy Chayefsky. But director John Cromwell was not up to the script and whoever was in charge of casting the film was an idiot.

Starring in a Bio-Pic, Another Challenge for Actors

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk

It looks like I’m going to go see a movie called Barbie that is really and truly based on the doll from Mattel. (Margot Robbie in the title role.) Who’dathunkit? (I’m not going today, by the way, but eventually.) 

The reviews are in and they are overwhelmingly positive (a current 90% on the tomato meter). Also opening this week is Oppenheimer which is about the famous physicist. Robert Oppenheimer was a character in my novel Threat of Night. One of two real people in the book, the other being Fritz Weidemann the German general counsel in San Francisco in 1941. In including “real people” in my book I was diligent about research. Thus I got to know Opie a fair bit. Cillian Murphy seems an odd choice to play him but a lot of odd choices in bio pics have worked out well, see Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in The Aviator. Less of on odd choice is Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon; due in theaters this fall. I’m sure he’ll do bang up job. Odd to think that Phoenix will have portrayed both Johnny Cash and Napoleon Bonaparte.

I guess I’m on the topic of actors playing historical figures. Daniel Day-Lewis set the standard when he played Abraham Lincoln. None of us have ever seen Lincoln nor is there any existing film of him (not that there could be, given that he died in 1865) but surely, we all believed, that was what Lincoln sounded, looked and acted like. We were all convinced that Day-Lewis WAS Lincoln. 

Gary Oldham similarly won a best actor Oscar for his turn as Churchill in The Darkest Hour. It was damn good but we’ve all seen plenty of footage of Churchill so the delusion that he was perfect was not quite there. Still he embodied the character and it was a bravura performance. 

Bruno Ganz gave an incredible performance as Adolph Hitler in Downfall. The movie was controversial because some claimed it humanized Der Fuhrer. I thought that was precisely the point. Hitler was a human and it’s important to remember that true evil springs from us. This was not some monster created in a lab or that arrived from another planet. Hitler and all those who did his bidding were people. Just like you and me.

So far I’ve only mentioned men, let’s fix that. Cate Blanchett (in yet another Oscar-winning performance) was positively brilliant as Katherine Hepburn in the aforementioned The Aviator. She barely looked like the great actress — not her fault — but totally captured her voice and mannerisms. 

Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose (yeah, she won an Oscar too) was mesmerizing. So too Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash (yup, got an Oscar) in Walk the Line opposite Mr. Phoenix. Singers are especially hard to do but great actors somehow manage. John Cusack and Paul Dano both excelled as Brian Wilson in Music and Lyrics.

I can’t believe I’ve gone this far and not mentioned Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in Milk (yes, he won the Oscar too, the Academy loves to reward actors for playing real people). It was one of the greatest performances in a film I’ve ever seen.

Ya know who else was good as real people? From the same film, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein in All the President’s Men and Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee. That was a helluva cast.

Here’s one that doesn’t get mentioned a lot, Joan Allen as Pat Nixon in Oliver Stone’s Nixon. That’s a tough one to do because you’re playing someone who is so publicly restrained. 

Damn! Here’s another I forgot and it’s another Oscar winner, Robert DeNiro as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. In terms of portrayals of real people it’s got to be in the top five along with Penn as Milk. 

Shout out to Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I hope people realize that Robbie is much much more than a gorgeous woman, she’s one of our better actresses. Here’s an example: her portrayal of Tonya Harding in I, Tonya. Another stunning bio pic performance.

Here’s another for my top five (better make it a top ten it’s getting kind of crowded), Al Pacino as John Wojtowicz in Dog Day Afternoon. Surely one of the greatest performances never to garner an Oscar. Of course Wojtowicz is not a familiar figure (according to those who knew him or met him — like my wife— Pacino nailed it) so I don’t know if that’s the same thing as Penn’s Milk. Maybe there’s two categories: portraying familiar people and those who, while real, are not seared into the public consciousness. It’s a whole different deal playing someone that the public is less familiar with. It’s much easier for Warren Beatty to play Clyde Barrow (Bonnie and Clyde) and John Reed (Reds) than for David Strathairn to play Edward R. Murrow (Good Night and Good Luck) or Meryl Streep to play Margaret Thatcher (Iron Lady).

There’s a terrific performance in a film not widely seen that’s well worth mentioning here and that’s Michael Sheen as the great British football manager Brian Clough in Damned United. If you’re not familiar with Clough watch the film then check him out and You Tube (there’s tons of clips) and you’ll see how good Sheen was. Another lesser known but brilliant performance was Ian McKellen as the director James Whale (Gods & Monsters). Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce (Lenny), Denzel Washington as Malcom X (Malcolm X), Ray Liotta as Henry Hill (Goodfellas), Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth ( Schindler’s List) were also good. So too Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn (Coal Miner’s Daughter) and Diana Ross as Billie Holiday (Lady Sings the Blues).

I’m sure I’m missing a lot. Some haven’t been mentioned because I’ve not seen the movie or don’t hold it in high esteem.

I wonder from an actor’s perspective if it’s more difficult to play a historical figure or one who’s well-known in fiction like Henry Fonda playing Tom Joad (Grapes of Wrath) or the many women who have played Jo March — most recently Saoirse Ronan — in the many versions of Little Women? People develop pretty strong ideas of what a fictional character in a book looks and sounds like and the darn thing about it is they vary. If the actor’s version varies too widely from something resembling a norm, you’ve got trouble. Is it easiest to play a character who comes from an original screenplay? I would think so. Not only are you not dealing with the same type of expectations from the audiences, but you’ve got license to create the character pretty much as you see fit (though the screenwriter, the director and maybe even the producer might inhibit that process either for better or worse.)

Anyway I’m interested to see what Margot Robbie does with Barbie. Just hope she gets the voice right.

I Examine the Question: Who is My Favorite Actor, Then I Answer it

Cary Grant

Someone asked me recently who my favorite actor is. Oh my. There’s so many sides to that question. Am I looking at someone who consistently gave or gives great performances? Am I leaning toward an actor who is in a lot of my favorite movies? Am I considering star quality? 

How do you compare Cary Grant and Robert DeNiro? They’re from different eras and were expected to do such different types of things. 

Grant is the first name that pops into my mind because he was in so many films that I love — His Girl Friday, Holiday, Talk of the Town, Notorious, The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, Mr. Lucky, The Philadelphia Story, Suspicion. Many of them are comedies. Far from being disqualifying that’s a testament to his skills. Being a good comic actor is difficult and Grant was a great one. Grant couldn’t give a performance to match Brando in Streetcar Named Desire (who can?) but then again we’re talking about favorites here not best.

Al Pacino is the second actor who comes to mind. He’s given some of the greatest lead acting performances I’ve ever seen including in three cinematic classics: The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2 and Dog Day Afternoon. He was brilliant as a supporting player in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. He was never better than in Donne Brasco, a lesser film that he stole. He also shone in Serpico, And Justice for All, Panic in Needle Park, The Irishmen, Heat, Insomnia, Scarecrow and Glengarry Glen Ross. I think he’s the greatest actor of the past fifty years. 

My third candidate is Humphrey Bogart. Arguably he’s more star than actor then again he certainly did some serious acting in Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen. He wasn’t merely standing there reading from the script in Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Petrified Forest, To Have and Have Not, Dark Passage or Key Largo. Bogart had such on screen presence he could practically make a film just by showing up and he was made for certain roles such as Philip Marlow, Sam Spade and Rick Blaine.

Al Pacino

In scanning my extensive collection of DVDs I note that the actor who appears the most is Max Von Sydow. Many of these are Bergman films such as The Seventh Seal, Winter Light and The Virgin Spring, but he’s also in two films — The Emigrants and the New Land — by another Swedish director, Jan Troell as well as several American films including Hannah and Her Sisters, the Exorcist, Shutter Island, Three Days of the Condor and as the narrator in Europa. I absolutely love his work, he made a lot of good films even better including some of the best in cinema history.

The previously mentioned Robert DeNiro also shows up in a lot of my DVDs: Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Mean Streets the King of Comedy, The Godfather Part 2, Silver Linings Playbook, Jackie Brown, The Deer Hunter and Heat. Wow. And so many iconic performances. His turns as Travis Bickle, Jake LaMotta and the young Vito Coreleone are enough to hang a career on, three careers.

I also like Paul Newman who somehow didn’t win an Oscar for either Hud or The Verdict. Unfortunately Newman’s career including an inordinate number of clunkers and few great films. Of course he was memorable in two films with Robert Redford —Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the Sting. Redford is another beloved actor who lit up the screen in The Candidate, All the President’s Men, Downhill Racer and Three Days of the Condor but he was never a great actor at least not in comparison to the likes of DeNiro and Pacino

Dustin Hoffman is unquestionably a great actor as are Daniel Day Lewis, Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins and Denzel Washington but none of them are enough of my favorite films.

I’m a big fan of Malcolm McDowell but there’s not much to him besides If…. And A Clockwork Orange.

Oh my, I've forgotten Jack Nicholson (Chinatown, The Shining, The Last Detail, Five Easy Pieces). 

I love William Holden who was so good in Sunset Blvd. Stalag 17, Bridge on the River Kwai and Network but that’s not quite extensive enough a list. Similarly I’m a fan of Burt Lancaster but he doesn’t have enough on his resume either.

James Stewart appears in a lot of good to great films and was amazing in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington but I’ve never fully warmed up to the person he was and that counts for something when you’re talking about favorites. 

I also love Charlie Chaplin —doesn’t everyone? Notably he spent the overwhelming majority of his film career as the Little Tramp character, a different sort of acting. But as a potential favorite he has to rank high.

So too Groucho Marx who essentially played the same character throughout his film career but he did it so well and in so many great comedies.

Marcello Mastrioni

Let’s see I haven’t mentioned William Powell or Jack Lemmon or Woody Allen (he's also been in a lot of my favorites and has directed himself in many) or Leonardo DiCaprio or Henry Fonda or Steve McQueen. My god, McQueen, certainly my favorite actor from the first half of my life and still someone whose work I greatly admire. The Great Escape, Bullitt and Getaway are great examples of star performances by Mr. Cool.

And other than Von Sydow I’ve mentioned no actors from foreign language films. I’ll remedy that by invoking the name of Marcello Mastrioni who was both a “star” and a talented actor. I love him in La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, La Notte, The Organizer, and A Special Day. Then there’s Jean Gabin who starred in such films as La Grande Illusion, Port of Shadows and The Lower Depths. Matti Pellonpää featured in many of Aki Kaurismäki’s early films including Shadows in Paradise, La Vie Da Bohme and Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth. Can’t forget Toshiro Mifune a regular in Akira Kurosawa’s films of the fifties. The Swiss actor, Bruno Gansz deserves a mention for his many roles in German films such as Downfall and Wings of Desire.

Okay, it’s time to fish or cut bait, so who’s my favorite? I’m going with three. My favorite from the first half of the 20th century is Cary Grant, as previously suggested, my favorite after that is Al Pacino and my favorite foreign language actor is Marcello Mastrioni.

Coming up later this week: my favorite actress.

Reflections on Dog Day Afternoon and Some of My Usual Miscellany

Midway through Dog Day Afternoon, Sonny (Al Pacino) says: "I’m a fuck up and an outcast and that’s it." Yes, yes he was. But he had the attention of New York city that night. His story was carried live on TV as he held bank employees hostage and waited for his demands -- an airplane to take him and his partner (John Cazale) to Algeria. Sonny got more than his 15 minutes of fame and it was loud and brash and splashy and the residue of that day (August 22, 1972) kept him in the news until his death, just as the film has kept his memory alive onto this day.

It is Sidney Lumet's direction of the brilliant film and Al Pacino's bravura performance that will ensure that Sonny lives forever -- or at least until the effects of global warming drown humanity for good and all. 

Today was perhaps my sixth or seventh or maybe even eighth viewing of the film, the first one was when it first hit the silver screen in 1975. Today during the famous cinematic moment when Pacino's Sonny starts chanting "Attica!" I actually and truly got choked up. It is not a sentimental moment by any stretch but it is a moment of cinematic virtuosity that confirms Dog Day's place among America's pantheon of great films. At that point in the film Pacino was in the midst of giving one of cinema's greatest portrayals. His Sonny is the ultimate loser -- or fuck up and outcast -- a man who robs a bank to fund his wife Leon's (Chris Sarandon) sex change operation. As the story unfolds Leon is in a mental hospital, driven there in part by Sonny's erratic behavior. His other wife is an obese woman who has born him two children. She loves Sonny but has also been plagued by this mercurial nature. We also meet Sonny's mother who loves her son unconditionally but constantly hectors him.

So why did I get choked up, really? Great art, which film can achieve, is moving. Two great artists -- Pacino and Lumet -- combined (with the not insignificant help of cast and crew) to transcend movie-making and created something not just memorable as a meme, but illustrative of the masterpiece they had created. It touched me.

Sonny is astute about a lot of things in the course of the robbery and hostage situation, including bank procedures. When the limo comes to take him and partner and the hostages to the airport, Sonny wisely surrounds himself with the hostages as they leave the bank, not leaving himself to be a target for the innumerable police sharp shooters. But he can't win in the end. The Sonnys of the world never do. His swagger, his antics, his sensitivity, his patience, his cunning are not enough to make up for the central core of what he is, "a fuck up and an outcast and that’s it." However, unlike most losers he gained infamy without opprobrium. 

I wrote about Dog Day Afternoon five years ago, including the story of how my wife met the real Sonny.

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Speaking of Dog Day Afternoon, there are no actual dogs in the film. There are no cats in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. There is no lion in The Lion in Winter. There are no horses in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? There is no elephant in Gus Van Sandt's Elephant. There is no tiger in Save the Tiger. There are, however, lots of Birds in the movie of the same name.

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I had a medical appointment this morning scheduled for 9:45. Two days prior I received a courtesy call from the office reminding me of the appointment, but also telling me to arrive 30 minutes early to fill out paperwork Why was the appointment made for 9:45 if I was supposed to be there at 9:15? When not just make the appointment for 9:15 in the first place? Here's the kicker: the paperwork took me less than five minutes and checking in and making my co-payment consumed about two minutes. I didn't even need to get there ten minutes early, let alone 30. I'm old enough neither to be surprised nor frustrated by any of this.

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I'm currently going through withdrawals as I have stopped taking (after tapering off) the medication that ostensibly was a mood stabilizer that would keep mean, nasty old depression from bothering me. Suffice to say that this magic elixir did nothing of the kind and joins the pantheon of meds I've taken to brighten my mood that have had zero effect. For all I know some of them have made things worse. Anyway I've been having to put up with brain zaps which is one of the hardest phenomenon I've ever tried to explain. The best I can do is say that they're like little electric shocks to the brain. They don't really cause any problems or prevent me from doing anything, but they are an awful nuisance. Other withdrawal symptoms for this particular drug include: "agitation, anxiety, depression, dizziness, fatigue, headache, insomnia, irritability, itchiness, mood swings, muscle spasms, nausea, panic attacks, sleep changes, suicidal thoughts, vomiting, vivid dreams and weight changes." The only ones I've had besides the brain zaps are vivid dreams and depression although I have vivid dreams and depression pretty much as a matter of course (never together) so they are not necessarily associated with going off the drug. Trust me, the brain zaps are enough.
I love science.

Every Dog Has His Day and So Does Every Sociopath

He was a big man there for a little while. Real big. Got his 15 minutes of fame and then some. His name was John Wotjowicz and he was a nobody. Until he robbed a bank. It was August 22, 1972 and in a span of a few hours the 27 year old loser had the full attention of the local media. Wotjowicz was not just on TV, he was live. Though this was a Brooklyn story, it ultimately gained national attention.

John and his partner Salvatore Naturile had come to be surrounded in the bank by hundreds of law enforcement officers. Thus the robbery became a hostage situation with the two holding eight bank employees and demanding a jet to the country of their choosing.

TV cameras were soon on the scene and Wotjowicz played to the camera. He was not a hero but he was a celebrity. It was reality TV years ahead of its time and without the artifice of a made up situation. It even offered what was by that day's standards a bizarre subplot. It turned out that John was married to a man (it simply wasn't done then at all) and part of his motivation for the bank heist was so that he could pay for his beloved's sex change operation. But of course that's not all, for John who also had a female wife and with her two young children. It was a story that wrote itself.

Wotjowicz drew a live crowd along with TV viewers and he knew how to work a room, so to speak. He could often be seen cavorting about outside discussing terms with the cops and FBI while Sal kept an eye on the hostages. Wotjowicz played to crowd and they loved it. This man was a classic sociopath.

But after 14 hours the drama ended at the airport with Naturile dead and Wotjowicz in handcuffs. So it goes.

Wotjowicz might have faded into obscurity but for the Sidney Lumet directed drama Dog Day Afternoon released three years after the actual events. Al Pacino played him with John's name changed to Sonny Wortzik. His story was now eternal, forever on film. And as the film has become a classic, never to be forgotten.

Part of the allure of the Dog Day is Pacino's performance, which remains one of the greatest ever in cinema. Premiere Magazine rated it as the fourth best of all time. As far as such things can be measured, they got it about right.

Pacino gave his character equal portions of charm, charisma, pathos, sensitivity, rage, insanity and most of all verve. It is an exciting performance for how daring it is. I still remember seeing it for the first time and being stunned by how compelling a persona he'd made of this man and how grounded in truth it all felt. It is nothing less than an extension of Brando's turn as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

In the entire film there are two shots fired and not a hint of a car chase or explosion. Instead we are presented a great deal of dialogue and it is so real and yet lively and thoroughly engrossing and entertaining.

The "real Sonny" not only entertained the crowds outside but his hostages as well. They were enthralled by this "character." It was not the Stockholm Syndrome nor even in this case the Brooklyn Syndrome. It was just being around a guy who had a special light glowing feverishly out of him. Never mind that he was somewhat bonkers.

Pacino is not the only actor to distinguish himself in the film. Charles Durning is wonderful as the chief negotiator and John Cazale played Sal. Every film Cazale appeared in before his premature death was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It can't just be a coincidence.

Dog Day Afternoon did not try to re-create the events depicted verbatim. Indeed much of the dialogue was improvised, per Lumet's desires. That decision enabled the actors to truly inhabit their characters and faithfully render the feeling of that day and the bizarre man in the middle of it. And for all that improvisation the movie does not stray very far from "the way it really was."

That it was to be a bank robbery like no other is evident early in the film. Sonny's gun is disguised in large long box with a ribbon on it. When the robbery is to commence he attempts to boldly whip the rifle out. Like many small things in life, it does not come off perfectly. The box stubbornly hangs on and Sonny has to whip it away. Then there is the matter of the third accomplice to the robbery. He gets a "bad vibe" about the whole thing and quickly begs off. He and Sonny argue a bit over the car keys before he splits.

It is a film remarkably free of cliches. It is more the type of film to be imitated. Such as the scene when Sonny famously gets onlookers to chant "Attica, Attica, Attica!" Sonny has fashioned himself into a local hero. Like the bandits of old who later became folk heroes. When his bisexuality becomes known, the gay community comes out to root on one of their own.

Dog Day Afternoon features one of the greatest sequences I've ever seen in a film. It comes about half way through the drama. Sonny suspects that the police are trying to break into the back of the bank. To discourage them he fires a shot into a transom. All hell breaks loose. We see it in quick cuts. From the cops running, to Sonny running, to Sal, to the hostages, to command central, back and forth we get quick glimpses of what each major player and group in the drama is doing in reaction to this single gun shot. It lasts not quite 40 seconds of screen time. In that short time we see and even feel a whirlwind of reactions and actions. Amazing stuff. Just like the story itself.

Footnote: Some years ago my darling wife, Kathryn, was living in Santa Barbara (we had not yet met). An acquaintance had organized a visit into Lompoc prison as part of a program he was involved in. There was to be a group session between a few civilians and some of the inmates. Kathryn went along. Among the group of prisoners was John Wotjowicz. He bore no resemblance to Pacino pasty faced, reddish brown hair and not nearly as handsome. She remembers him as a charismatic man (typical of sociopaths) who went to great lengths to impress everyone.


Wotjowicz was able to see some profit from the film (it is no longer legal to so profit from a criminal endeavor) and thus paid for his lover's sex change operation. She died of AIDS at the age of 41 in 1987. That same year John was released from prison having served 25 years. He died of cancer in 2006 at the age of 60.