Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: Al Pacino, John Cazale, James Broderick, Charles During

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but it’s been so long since I saw it, that some where in the back of my head I thought Pacino and Cazale played lovers in the film. How did I misremember the final act so thoroughly?

Did I Like It: I’ll go a little beyond the question of just liking it—Cazale is in the film, ergo it’s a classic, and your cinematic education is likely incomplete until you’ve seen it. It’s a perfect picture of the collective American psychosis decades before it ever took hold of us all. The irretrievable fusion of rationalization and desperation. Violence as heroism. Masculinity never quite being what it appears on the surface. The media as a willing accomplice for… well, whoever is willing to use them at the moment. There is nothing about the story of Sonny (Pacino) and Sal (Cazale) that couldn’t happen today, other than the fact that I don’t think the FBI would take so much pains to not put down a hostage situation over fourteen hours.

So many people I talk to blanche at the idea of classic movies. I even had a friend who proclaimed that he never watches movies released before he was born. After they brought me back to consciousness, I eventually got to the realization that people like me might oversell such cinematic staples*, so let me try to make this a little more attractive to you:

It seems like it’s the kind of drama that people in the 70s used to keep themselves in a state of perpetual depression. Or maybe it’s a thriller. Stories about bank robberies are often thrillers.

It’s really a comedy. Pacino even says as much. Dramas usually end in catharsis: This doesn’t. Thrillers—especially the ones about bank robberies—are about plans that go wrong. This is about three guys with no plan, and their scheme almost works.

*I refer you to the top of the last paragraph.

Deathtrap (1982)

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. I honestly hadn’t even heard of the film before seeing a review in an old episode of Siskel & Ebert. As I’m not allowed to recommend movies for podcasts based on those two gentlemen from Chicago—with good reason—I’m still free to watch films like that on my own, right?

Did I Like It: There’s two very obvious observations one can make about this film. First, it’s clear that Christopher Reeve is having a great time doing this film. He’ll never not be known as Superman, he’d likely never have been a movie star without Superman, and I think he probably liked being Superman. But your guy needed a break. And I can feel the happiness he must have felt when he read this script.

I can also see where this film tripped slightly at the box office. Trying to hit the 1980s moviegoing audience where their red and blue clad hero is a sociopathic writer who is lovers with Michael Caine. I’d like to say that we’re more evolved now, but I can swing my arms and hit somebody on the internet who would set their hair on fire if Henry Cavill kissed a man on film today.

The film itself packs a fair amount of surprises, although most of those occur in the film’s first half. I legitimately thought that Sidney (Caine) had killed Clifford (Reeve). I figured the film wouldn’t have made use of a star only to off him in the first act, if for no other reason than Hitchcock got away with it the one time and it’ll never happen again. When he does return, I didn’t think that would be the shape of the film’s plot. Good on it, surprising me that effectively.

The rest of the film plays out a little by the numbers. Turnabouts are laid on top of turnabouts, only to have the whole film be somebody else’s play. It’s an unsatisfying ending, to be sure.