How are ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ connected?
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is a beloved staple in movie culture and history. The 1972 crime noir film is the first instalment in The Godfather trilogy and tells the story of the youngest son of a crime boss transforming from a reluctant family outsider to a ruthless mafia boss.
The star-studded cast includes the likes of Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan and Diane Keaton, alongside some of the industry’s biggest names. The film was hugely successful due to its story, performances and techniques, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1972, earning around $250 million at the box office.
Coppola’s effort is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made, as well as a major milestone in the gangster genre, which became popular in the ’70s.
Another crime gem that followed in The Godfather’s wake was Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, released in 1975 and also starring Al Pacino. Lumet’s story follows a man who decides to rob a local Brooklyn bank to pay for his lover’s operation, but he is forced to take hostages after the heist does not go as planned.
Dog Day Afternoon was another massive success in the crime genre. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and seven Golden Globes. These two pictures share a special and fascinating connection, other than having screen legend Al Pacino as the star. There is another interesting name that keeps these two crime films in the same vein.
In 1972, John Wojtowicz unsuccessfully tried to rob a bank to pay for his wife Eden’s gender reassignment surgery. His source of inspiration for the idea and execution came from none other than The Godfather, the film he had just finished watching the same day of the robbery attempt.
This attempted re-creation of the film’s subject matter was watched by 2,000 onlookers, FBI, roof-top snipers, TV crew, and police, who all gathered at the Chase Manhattan bank in Gravesend, Brooklyn.
The details of the heist are as follows: Wojtowicz gathered seven hostages for a total of 14 hours. Despite his crime, he showed some level of humanity as he demanded food for the hostages, even paying for it himself. He also reportedly tossed out money to the onlookers outside. After a few gunshots, Wojtowicz’s robbery attempt ended in failure. He was then arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison, of which he served five. He was released on April 10th, 1978, having missed the sequel to The Godfather by four years.
This fascinating story captured the attention of filmmaker Lumet, who was so inspired by Wojtowicz’s antics that he just had to include them in an original screenplay he started working on soon after. That screenplay and Wojtowicz’s story later became Dog Day Afternoon which is how The Godfather became responsible for Dog Day Afternoon.
In 1975, Wojtowicz wrote a letter to The New York Times, worried that people would believe the fictionalised version of the events, as he only believed them to be partially accurate. One of these concerns was the portrayal of his first wife’s unideal behaviour leading to his relationship with Eden, as this was not what happened.
Wojtowicz received the official rights to the story he inspired and was paid $7,500 and 1% of the movie’s net profits. These were all given to Eden for her surgery. However, Wojtowicz and Eden’s love story doesn’t have the happiest of endings. After her surgery, Eden married someone else. Tragically, she passed away due to AIDS-related pneumonia in 1987, exactly 15 years after Wojtowicz’s attempted robbery. Wojtowicz attended her funeral and delivered a eulogy. He himself died of cancer on January 2nd, 2006, in his mother’s home, aged 60.
