Varsity Preview

Dog Day Afternoon 2.15 Thurs.

A film by Sydney Lumet, the director of The Pawnbroker, Serpico and Network. It is a melodrama based on a bank robbery. "Dog Day Afternoon is a gaudy street-carnival of a movie that rudely invites laughs at inappropriate moments which is in keeping with the city's concrete sensibility."

— NY Times.

In 1972 the Chase Manhatten Bank was held up by a gang whose leader was seeking some money for his boyfriend to have a sex change operation. This robbery appeared live on TV as the robbers negotiated for a Jet plane. Most of the film is confined inside the bank as the hold-up took 14 hours.

Brilliant acting by the large cast including Al Pacino, who played the 'mastermind' of the robbery who at one stage vows his love for his wife and kids, end especially for his boyfriend whom he married in a drag wedding some months earlier witnessed by his mother. Strangely the boyfriend played by Chris Sarandon testifies however that his would-be patron has tried to kill him several times.

Quite an amazing film.