WHAT WENT WRONG - Dog Day Afternoon

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

44 years ago, nearly to the day, John Wojtowicz and two accomplices caught a matinee showing of The Godfather, then walked into a bank and inadvertently changed cinema history. Chris & Lizzie explore Sidney Lumet's adaptation of Wojtowicz's sensational and tragic failed heist, the major studios' reticence to touch the material, Al Pacino's struggles with the role, and what Hollywood owes the subjects who inspire the films they make. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast, Full Stop, that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone one of the most stressful movies I think I've ever watched, but a very good one. I'm very excited to talk about this film. I'm one of your host, Lizzie Bassett, here, as always, with Chris Winterbauer and Chris. What do you get for us today? We're heading to a whole different country, Wyoming.

That was the saddest part of the movie. We're going to talk about that line. It has a specific origin and is kind of hotly disputed by various folks actually involved in the real life events that this is based upon. We are talking about Dog Day Afternoon. One of my favorite heist movies, if you couldn't even call it that. I agree. A very stressful film. Perhaps a film The Safdi Brothers watched over and over again.

Yes. I think this movie inspired the Safdi's amongst many others in terms of panes. Inducing New York-based movies. Let's bring that heart rate up. But before we dive in, a quick note, if you guys are interested in hearing this podcast, Sands ads, no ads, and with bonus episodes,

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Lizzie, we are talking about Dog Day afternoon, a movie in which everyone is sweating so much all the time, including the viewer. It's the sweatiest movie I've ever seen. And it's perfect because we are dealing with an historic heat dome is settling in over the United States, especially the Western United States, as an historic El Nino, perhaps a once-in-a-century El Nino

is percolating in the Pacific Ocean. Can't wait. The humidity in L.A. is just swamp-goos. territory up the ying, yang. Yeah, and there's mosquitoes. Absolute nightmare. There are mosquitoes. My children have been chewed up.

So, Lizzie, I have to ask you, had you ever seen Sydney Lumette's Dog Day afternoon before? And what were your thoughts upon watching or rewatching it for the podcast? I had not ever seen this movie in full. I had seen plenty of scenes from it. I, you know, knew very basically what it was about. But this was my first time really sitting down and watching it beginning to end. and I loved it. I can't believe I haven't seen this movie before now. Shame on me. This is one of the top three Al Pacino performances, I think, certainly. There's so many things about this movie that I loved. I loved the pacing. I loved

that even though it gets very big by the end, it feels so small for so much of it, very, you know, claustrophobic. And it focuses so much on the personal relationships and interactions more than it does, you know, action or anything. To your point about the question of whether or not this is really a heist movie, I think, the answer is yes, but it's a heist movie that cares about the people doing the heist and also the people that are being held up. Obviously, it's a movie with some very interesting and I think nuanced queer representation, which I know we will talk about over the course of this episode. If you've not had a chance to listen to our episode with Raina Deerwater from Glad, please go back and listen to that. It's a really great conversation about where we are today in terms of LGBTQ representation in film now. And also, I think

it speaks a little bit to where this movie would fit in in terms of the kind of specifically in this case trans representation that we see in film all to say this movie's great man do i miss when people were sweaty and weird looking in movies i really wish we could bring that back everybody in this just has a real face and a real body and they're all a little weird looking but they're also all attractive and i just i just miss it so much and alpuccino is super hot just had to throw that in there at the end. Also, Carol Kane. So cute. Little tiny under the desk mouse, Carol Cain. Squirrel. Yes, he does call her a squirrel, which is ruder, I think, for some reason. Anyway, yeah, I found it very moving. Even though I knew what the ending was going to be, I still found myself hoping that maybe they were going to find their way out of it. And of course, they don't. Spoiler alert. Chris, what's your experience with Dog Day afternoon? I had seen this before a couple times. This was one my dad introduced me to. God, Steve's got great taste. He does. He loved this movie. A few early. This Serpico, was the other big one that he did with Sidney Lumet, which I rewatched for this episode. And I loved it in high school. I couldn't believe how good it was. It was also my first experience with John Cazal when I was in high school. Oh, because had you not seen The Godfather? I saw this before I saw The Godfather. Interesting. And so this was my first Casal experience. I didn't know Fredo. And I love his performance in this movie. He's so good. Sal Natta Rale. And so I knew it was based on a true story. I didn't know much about the true story. And a lot of what we were

to talk about is the story behind this movie. I agree with you. I love the pacing of this film. I love that it doesn't have music, with the exception of a needle drop that opens the movie. And we'll talk a little bit about that song selection. I think this is one of Sidney Lumette's best films. It's so interesting that he has kind of a mid-career. I would not call it a revival, but from a prestige perspective, perhaps a mid-career revival that corresponds to Al Pacino having one of the most incredible openings to any film career that an actor has ever had. And we'll talk about, I watched all of his lead roles leading into this movie. And we can talk about the crescendo that builds kind of through Dog Day Afternoon. It's pretty remarkable. And yet this movie was kind of controversially received,

especially by a lot of people in the gay community at the time, even though it was really well received critically. And the subjects of the film are even more complicated than they appear in the movie. And we're going to talk about that too. Okay. I'm glad because I have a lot of questions about, well, we can get into it. I have a lot of questions about the way that Sunny's wife is portrayed in the movie. Well, both of them, actually. He has two wives in the film, and he has more wives across his life. Okay. And we can talk about that. I have questions about both, because in some ways, they both feel like somewhat unfair portrayals, but I don't know. So I'm interested to learn more. And obviously, one of his wives is trans. And that is, of course, the sort of lynch pin that a lot of the movie

hinges on, kind of, is whether or not he did this to get money. for an operation. Yeah, we'll talk about that too. It's really a Russian nesting doll of stories within stories, within stories, within stories. Yeah. We'll do our best to try to see if we can get to A-truths, but ultimately it's kind of John's word

against many other people's word kind of, you know, over time. Let me say this, though. I think one thing that the movie actually does well, and I don't know enough for this to, you know, be an absolute truth that I'm about to say, but I think it did a decently good job of exposing how complicated he,

was and the fact that it seems like he had been dangerous to both of his partners at that point prior to this. And they don't brush that under the rug. It's brought up multiple times by both wives. And it's interesting, though, because Al Pacino plays him as so likable and so sort of gentle towards the hostages that it's a weird dichotomy to have to hold over the course of the movie. But I appreciated that they didn't erase that, whatever that was. Yeah. Pacino is just at this point in his career, he is so unbelievably likable. I went and watched The Panic at Needle Park, his first lead role from 71,

and then rewatched The Godfather, and then Scarecrow, which I had never seen, with him and Gene Hackman, which one of our audience members recommended as a Bait and Switch movie, because it does become various kind of serious midway through, and then Serpico, Godfather Part 2, and this. And what's interesting is Corleone

is kind of the outlier performance in how taciturn and reserved that character is. Yes. And he's much more dynamic, light on his feet, charismatic, now still very somber, troubled, tragic in a lot of these roles, but there's a lightness to him. He's sweet. He's very sweet.

And that comes through. In Serbico, you could argue actually to the detriment of the film a little bit. He seems a little too naive. But the point is, there's a sweetness to Pacino. And I agree with you. I'm glad they don't shy away from certain things that, as we'll learn, are very real. Yeah, I figured. Let's get into it.

For me, this is my favorite Pacino performance movie. I love this movie. I think I agree. I think, yeah. I just think it's the most interesting. But let's dive in because it very nearly didn't happen. And Pacino had a really hard time with this role. And it's a very interesting story.

So before we begin, the details. Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 American crime drama based on a true story film directed by Cindy Lumet. It was written by Frank Pearson and is based primarily on the Life magazine article, The Boys in the Bank, by writers P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore. It was produced by Martin Bragman. and Martin Elfand, and it stars, and I'm going to read the names of the characters as they are described in the film.

Right. And then we'll talk about their real counterparts later. Al Pacino as Sunny Wartzick, John Cazal as Sal Natchadale, Charles Durning as Sergeant Eugene Moretti. I love Charles Durning. Charles Durning's great. Chris Sarandon as Leon Schumer. Penelope Allen as Sylvia.

Susan Peretz is Angie Wartz. You mentioned Lizzie, his first wife. James Broderick as FBI Special Agent Sheldon, Lance Henrickson, as a general agent. FBI Special Agent Murphy, Carol Kane as Jenny, Sully Boyar as the bank manager Mulvaney, and many, many more you'll notice a lot of people throughout this film. It was released on December 25th, 1975 in the United States by Warner Brothers, and as always, the IMDB logline reads. Three amateur robbers plan to hold up a Brooklyn bank.

A nice, simple robbery. Walk in, take the money and run. Unfortunately, the supposedly uncomplicated heist suddenly becomes a bizarre nightmare as everything that can go wrong does. I propose what I'm now introducing is Chris's alternate logline. Yeah. Three small-time crooks hit big-time fame when a simple bank heist goes awry, bringing the police, the public, and the media, colliding together one afternoon in the dog days of the New York summer.

Beautiful. It's like he's a professional writer. Also, can I just say, thank God Sidney Lumet made this movie, because I guarantee you Ryan Murphy would have this thing turned into an American crime story in 0.2 seconds. And maybe he still will. I don't know. I'm surprised it hasn't happened to. be honest, as we'll talk about, because you could explore the before and the after, and it would continue to be very interesting. Don't give him any ideas, Chris. I don't know. Maybe he could do a good job at it. I mean, as long as Jessica Langson and I'm fine. I don't know who she's going to play. Oh, one of the

tellers. Perfect. She's cast. Or his mother, Terry. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sources for today's episode include, but are not limited to and really not limited to. There were so many sources for this one, but these are the main ones. Born to Lose The Misfits Who Made Dog Day Afternoon by Rachel Walther. making movies by Sidney Lumet, Sunny Boy, a memoir, which I highly recommend by Al Pacino, and The Dog, a documentary on John Wattowitz, who is the subject of this film by Alison Berg and Frank Corowdren. And many more articles, interviews, and retrospectives with those involved in the making of the film. So Lizzie, as you saw, Dog Day Afternoon, begins with two sentences on a black screen. What you're about to see is true. It happened in Brooklyn, New York, on August 22nd, 1972.

So let's talk about Brooklyn, New York, August, 1972. It was hot and it was humid. Hurricane Agnes had brought record rainfall in June, followed by a historic heat wave in July, and the world was changing. And New York was the center of a lot of that change. This was just a couple years after the Stonewall riots, I'm sure you're well familiar with, Lizzie. Mayor John Lindsay, who was a Republican mayor in a Democratic city, had just signed an executive order prohibiting employment discrimination against gay workers in the public sector, which was the first time that public workers were protected for sexual orientation in the United States. The New York Police Department, following the efforts

of Officer Frank Serpico and Sergeant David Dirk, was facing increased scrutiny by the Knapp Commission for corrupt practices. But at the same time, cameras were appearing all over the city with the advent of VTRs and VCRs, video tape recorders and video cassette recorders, the surveillance state of CCTV, was being born. It was just a few years old. All the while, Lizzie, what was the biggest movie in the country in the summer of 1972? You covered it in a two-part episode and it stars Al Pacino. The Godfather. The Godfather. Just the first one. It had been in theaters for five months. It would of course bring in $250 million against a $6 million budget, which would make it the highest grossing movie of the year and of all time for a few years. And New York born.

Al Pacino was suddenly very, very famous. And soon, New York-born John Wattowitz would be two. A bit on John Wattowitz. He was five years younger than Al Pacino. He was a Vietnam War veteran. And on August 22nd, he and two acquaintances, Sal Natadale and Robert Westenberg, caught a matinee showing of what movie, Lizzie?

The Godfather? The Godfather. To pump themselves up. After the movie, they went into Chase Bank in Brooklyn. No, guys. Just before closing time at 258 p.m. And John Wattowitz handed the manager a note, and the note ended with a single line. Just do what you're told and no one will get hurt.

This is an offer you can't refuse. Oh, my God. Of course, it is an offer you can refuse if you're Alfred James Sonny Pacino, better known as Al Pacino. Now, the first time Al Pacino read the script for what would become known as Dog Day Afternoon, he passed. But let's get back to that. Let's go back to the summer of 1972

and jump away from John Waterwitz to producers Martin Elfand and Martin Bregman, who had about as much experience producing movies as John Waterwitz had, robbing banks. Uh-oh. So Elfin got his first producing credit that year with the Raquel Welch vehicle, Kansas City Bomber. I've never seen this. Have you seen this, Lizzie?

Never heard of it. Never seen it. It was made, though, under Artists Entertainment Complex, a film production and talent representation company headed by Martin Bregman. And Bregman was looking for material. He had just bought the rights to the story of NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico, specifically for Pacino. Have you seen Serpico, Lizzie?

A long, long time ago, but yes. I really liked it. It's great. Very interesting story. I think really showed that Pacino could cover a lot of ground. He ends up playing much older than he actually is in that film. It's a pretty dynamic performance. On September 22nd, 1972, Life magazine published an article called The Boys in the Bank.

And the title is an allusion to a 1968 play that I'm sure you're familiar with Lizzie, which one? The Boys in the Band. The Boys in the Band by Mark Crowley. There was a film adaptation by William Friedkin in 1970. It was one of the first movies to revolve around a group of gay male characters. So Cluj and Moore, the writers of the article, had interviewed the hostages, the police officers, the people in Wadowitz's life, including his mother, his estranged first wife, and of course, his second wife, who is at this point going by the name Elizabeth Eden. So there's a lot of confusion both in the film and in materials around the film around Elizabeth Eden and her preferred pronouns and how she identified at the time of this robbery and the making of the film. To be clear, Elizabeth Eden used both he and she pronouns.

She said in a lawsuit against Warner Brothers that at the time of the making of the film and the robbery, she identified as a boy. That's, again, her words will do our best to honor the pronouns she used later in her life throughout this episode. but just, you know, the confusion I think stems from a bit of ambiguity at the time about what was preferred by Elizabeth Eden. I'm guessing what caught Bregman and Elfin's eye was the following. In the third paragraph of the article, the writers describe would-be bank robber John Wattowitz as, quote, a dark, thin fellow with the broken-faced good looks of an Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman. They're just cast in the movie. Lizzie, this is not hyperbole. Have you ever seen John Wattowitz?

Show me. Oh, yeah. He's given like Al Pacino and Ringo Star had a baby kind of. Yeah. Definitely the haircut is very Ringo at the time, the page boy bowl. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yes, he definitely looks like Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman could play him. Who does he look like today? There's someone he looks exactly like. I actually think he also looks a little like De Niro at the time because of his nose. Yes, he does. I mean, I don't know. I don't know who you would put in this role today. Like Jeremy Allen White with a wig.

That's possible. Sure. Chris doesn't love it, but he'll consider it. I'll consider it. So do you know who played him and they did a stage adaptation of it? I do know who played him, John Bernthal. That's right. So the Marties, as we'll call them, Bragman and Elfin, had both represented Pacino. Elfin as an agent, Bregman as a manager.

And in fact, Pacino once said, quote, Martin Bregman discovered me off Broadway. I was 26, 25, and he discovered me and became my manager. And that's why I'm here. I owe it to Marty. I really do. He later wrote in his memoir that he told Pacino, look, I let Dustin Hoffman go by. I'm not going to do it again. And they weren't going to let this story go by either.

Well, and also, as we know from the Godfather episode, Pacino was not like an obvious shoe in for the leading roles that he ended up getting, especially not the Godfather. He was on a lot of, you know, Broadway and off Broadway. And he was making a space there. But it was definitely a big push to get him into the movies. Bragman wasn't going to let this story go by because it was unbelievable. So let's get back to the robbery. John Wattowitz, Lizzie, had worked in a bank. In fact, he'd worked in Chase Bank, Chase Manhattan. He knew what he was doing, and he had a plan. He would walk in with guns and leave with over $200,000 in cash.

The whole thing would be over in minutes. It fell apart even faster. Yeah. Robert Westenberg got cold feet and bailed, leaving Wattowicz and his 18-year-old or 19-year-old, I've read both ages, I believe it's 18, accomplice, Sal Natchadali, a man down. Oh, wow.

Sal was 18? He was 18. Oh, no. That makes that a lot sadder. They got the vault opened, and they found less than $50,000 inside when they were expecting $250,000. Before they could leave, the police had arrived. Now, in the movie, it's not explicitly explained how the police have found out what's happening at the bank.

There is a suggestion that perhaps a fire that takes place inside one of the trash can, the smoke. In reality, it's because Wadowitz has. let the bank manager answer the phone. Ralph Iello, an assistant treasurer and HR officer from a different branch, was calling about transferring a teller, and he could tell that something was off from the way that the branch manager, Barrett, was speaking. Wow.

So Ralph Iello asked, is there a problem at the branch? And Robert Barrett answers, very much so, and have a nice day, and then hangs up. Okay. IELO calls Chase Corporate Security. They call the NYPD, and suddenly Woldewitz and Naturalale are trapped, and so are the eight employees inside the bank, and the robbery becomes a hostage standoff. So by early 1973, several newspapers reported that the Marties had secured the rights to the boys in the bank.

But Lizzie, there's a problem. Do you think the studios were eager to touch this story? No. Nobody wanted to touch it. They had struggled to find a studio to back Serpico a couple years earlier, which is actually why they partnered with Dino Delerentes on that movie. we're going to talk about the consequences of that a little bit later. There's always consequences.

Yeah, a lot of personal expenses in the budget, as they learned. The same was proving true with the boys in the bank. According to Andrew Ewell's Pacino biography, A Life on the Wire, there was one interested party, Dick Shepard. He was an ex-agent, now working as an executive at Warner Brothers. The people involved in the robbery were also just as skeptical about a movie as the studios. According to Bregman, quote, they all had to be convinced that we would tell it pretty much the way it happened.

Elfin put it more bluntly. Everyone was suspicious, and I don't really blame them. There was this feeling of the little guys being exploited by the giant corporation, and I understand that. End quote. All but one hostage ended up signing on, including Waterwitz, after a protracted negotiation and holdout. We'll get back to what he ended up getting paid at the end of this episode.

But they didn't have Al Pacino. Not yet. As Bregman put it, no actor was attached at first. I couldn't go to Al, hand in hand. First of all, I still represented him. Then you're never going to get a firm commitment from anyone until you have a screenplay. It would be like joining a heist without a plan. And we know how that goes.

So Regman needed a man on the inside, someone who could figure out who John Waterwitz really was. He needed writer Frank Pearson. So Frank Pearson, like Watowitz and Pacino, was a New York native. He was also a veteran, not the Vietnam War, but World War II. According to his son, quote, when he came back, he was very, very sick. He got malaria, dysentery, jungle rot. He was like a human skeleton.

The impact from the war was monstrous on him. It created somebody who was a huge pacifist and deeply cynical of our government. We should note, John Wadowitz had a similar transformation. He's described himself as a Goldwater Republican prior to going to Vietnam. Which they mentioned in the movie. Or he mentions in the movie. They are photos of him at the Republican National Convention in 1964, I believe. He goes to Vietnam.

We'll talk about the sexual experience he has. but more importantly, when he's in Denang, he witnesses a large percentage of his battalion or his fellow soldiers wiped out in a rocket attack, and he becomes a peacnic, you know, when he returns to the United States, he has a full 180-degree turn. So Pearson got a job in the mailroom at Life Magazine,

and then he worked his way up to journalists, and he eventually wrote for both life and time, like the writers of The Boys in the Bank. He pivoted into television. He wrote episodes of Have Gun Will Travel and Empire, started directing television. He even directed a TV movie, The Neon Sealing, which co-starred Denise Nickerson, aka Violet Beauregard, a couple months before Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory came out.

And then he broke into movies with a rewrite of Cat Ballou, the Jane Fonda Western comedy. Lee Marvin got an Oscar for his dual performance in that movie. Frank Pearson got an Oscar nomination for that movie. And then he got nominated again a few years later with his adaptation of Cool Hand Luke. Oh, amazing. Which I'm sure you're familiar with. Yes. But Dog Day was a different challenge, Lizzie, because he was struggling to figure out what kind of movie it was going to be.

it was actually unclear where the focus should be based on the article. Should it be focused on what's going on outside the bank? Is it a police officer's story? Is it about the police hysteria, the crowd hysteria? Should it take place entirely inside the bank? Should he follow one of the tellers, you know, in particular? Or is it the personal history of this man, John Wattowicz? And what's confusing for him is that the direction of the studio was that this was going to be a comedy.

What? Yes. And actually, if you watch the trailers for the final film, they lean very comedy. I can like kind of see, I mean, I can't because in order to do that, you would have to either massively belittle or omit major parts of the story, including the fact that someone dies. I think belittle is the right word.

And that's the word to keep in mind as we get to some decisions that Sidney Lumet makes later that the studio doesn't agree with. Yeah, I could see someone at that time making the case for how you could turn this into a comedy. it would be bad, but I could see them doing it. So finally, Pearson decides I'm going to write it from John's perspective. This is going to be the story of this bank robbery from the perspective of John Wadowitz. Before he puts pen to paper, he does his homework. He interviews everybody involved in the real life incident,

just like the writers from Life magazine, except for one very important person. So according to an FBI report from March of 1972, there were an average of nine bank robberies per day in the United States. States in 1971, Lizzie. What? Yeah. The same report noted that more and more banks were using CCTV security cameras, which was a new technology. Kind of. The technology had existed actually in some form for decades, but it was just now starting to be employed in banks and across cities. Actually, the first city to use it widely was Olean, New York, which is in western New York on the border with Pennsylvania,

I believe, in 1968. Again, according to this report, which was released four months before the events portrayed in Dog Day Afternoon, bank robbers were coming up with new ways to work around these high-tech security measures, like robbing the bank as it closed, taking hostages to force the bank officials to open the vaults, and this had actually worked. There's reference to one case in which the gunmen held 13 members of a bank manager's family hostage. While his two co-conspirators drove the official to the bank to open the vault, they escaped with $400,000. They were later arrested, and the report ends with the following, quote, a campaign of continuous coordinated effort is needed to make the odds against success so great that hostage bank robberies

will cease. So let's get back to the robbery. Heading into the evening of August 22nd, 17, 1972, John Wadowitz's odds were not looking very good, Lizzie. He describes how when he looked out of the bank to leave for the first time, he saw that there were police officers on the fire escapes, in the windows, around the corner, on the roof, and he said, where the hell does all these guys come from? He sees a quote in that documentary with the dog. He goes, you know when you see in the movies how they say, we got one minute, we got one minute to get in and get out. He goes, it's because of this.

This is why you got one minute to get in and out. Despite this, the mood inside Chase Bank was surprisingly upbeat. Wadowitz let the hostages take phone calls and go to the bathroom. Bank manager Robert Barrett later said he had more laughs during that situation than he'd had in weeks. As the head teller later said, if they had been my house guests on a Saturday evening, it'd be hilarious. Now, we should note, this is taking place a year before the bank hostage situation in Stockholm, Sweden, which would lead to the widely disputed pop psychology term.

Stockholm syndrome. That's right. And this is two years before Patty Hearst kidnapping and subsequent aiding with the Sinbini's liberation army. Stockholm syndrome is, again, widely disputed the man who came up with it, did not actually speak to anybody involved in the hostage situation. And many of the people involved said, no, we were frustrated with the police because we just thought they were doing their jobs badly. We were, quote, identifying with the kidnappers because we were doing anything we had to to survive at the end of the day.

Right. Now, it does seem like the general camaraderie that they developed inside the bank may have been in part because of the chaos forming outside of the bank. The street was, as you see and can see in news footage, filled with police trucks, hundreds of armed officers,

helicopters flying around, crowds and reporters. It's also important to note that broadcasting technology had taken off after World War II, outside broadcasting, which is the production and transmission of audio and video from an external location, like live on the scene, had started to become portable. So KTLA had deployed the helicopter in 1958. This was the first helicopter broadcasting platform. It was hard because you had to get an antenna up without it getting sliced off by the rotors. And so it's a tricky thing back in the day. So electronic news gathering had just really been introduced, and it was this thing

called the Port-a-Pack videotape videotape-a-tap analog recording system from Sony that changed the game. Basically, outside broadcasting systems required enormous cameras that were on specialty vehicles with huge tripods or pedestal mounted, and these new electronic tape-based cameras could be carried and operated by one person. So you actually see this in the movie, Lizzie, had run up with, it looks like laser guns, you know, with giant backpacks on from the local news. So coupled with microwave of transmission, the time between recording and broadcast is cut way down so you could send a cameraman running right up to the front of a bank with a robbery in progress. But should you? Is the question no one asked? An open question. But as we mentioned earlier, Lizzie, there were eight or nine of these

bank robberies a day. And in fact, there were a couple of plane jackings in a couple of years prior that were dealt with by the FBI in New York as well. Obergfell, for example. What made this one special? What is the kind of unexpected pseudo-midpoint twist of this movie, Lizzie, the piece of information that kind of turns the whole thing on its head? Well, there's sort of two things. One is that he comes outside and manages to kind of get the crowd on his side with a bit of crowd interaction. Sure. But I believe the piece of information you're talking about, which I'm sure blew up the newswaves, is that he has a wife who is trans. I'm sure that's not how they reported it, but...

It wasn't even how he reported it. at the time. Okay. And again, for portions of this section, I'm going to use John's language when I'm quoting John, to be clear, because I want to give you guys the facts as they happened on the day. So, yes, Lizzie, you nailed it. The mainstream media caught wind of a detail they were not expecting. When Wadowitz asked the police to bring down his wife, he did not mean his estranged first wife, Carmen Bufulco, with whom he had two kids. He meant his second wife, Elizabeth Eden, who, at the time of these events, identified as a... man under the name Ernest Aaron.

Oh, okay. Yes, it's complicated in terms of the timing of transition and social transition versus post-operative transition. But John refers to Elizabeth Eden as Ernest Aaron at this point in time. And the quote that he gives the FBI is during negotiations, he says, I'm gay, my wife's a guy. And he said that he needed money to pay for her operation. Okay, but so she is identifying. In the way that we would qualify it today, it sounds like she is identifying as a woman at this point. Even if she is not living, we don't know. I don't think so exactly. Again, it's a little fluid. This is a period of transition for Elizabeth Eden, and it has been a serious point of contention in their relationship. Elizabeth has wanted to transition, and John has actually not wanted her to transition. In fact, they broke up months before the robbery.

because she wanted to transition and John did not want her to transition. Okay. I guess what I meant is if she wanted to transition, that's all I wanted to clarify, because that I guess. She did. Her intention and her desire at this point in time was to transition. That's my understanding. Okay.

Again, all of this gets a little complicated in terms of the language used and the language available at the time. Sure. So, journalist and gay activist alliance co-founder Arthur Bell knew Wadowitz from GAA or Gay Activist Alliance meetings. After being tipped off about a robbery involving two gay men, a detail that Naturdali disputed, Bell called the bank directly during the standoff. Hello, this is Arthur Bell from the village voice. Can you tell me what's happening? And he's shocked when John Wattowicz replies, Arthur, I'm glad it's you. This is Little John. Little John Basso was a pseudonym that John used at the

GAA meetings that he attended. Little John, as he describes in the documentary, is is a reference to his small penis, and Basso is his mother's maiden name. Okay. He's a colorful, lewd individual, John Wadowitz. He had been living, to a certain extent, a double life. According to the Life magazine article, quote, John Wadowitz divided the last weekend before the robbery as he divided his whole adult life between his two wives.

On Friday night, he took Carmen and the kids to see a double feature. Saturday night, he saw, and they use the name, Ernest. He was anxious and depressed. He took enough barbiturists to scare his friends. They called an ambulance, and he was rushed to Kings County Hospital. He was a very unstable person at this point in time. By the time Frank Pearson started writing, John Watowitz was in prison. Frank Pearson would call the prison, and Watowitz would agree to meet.

But then when Frank Pearson would show up at the prison, Wadowitz would refuse to see him. And this happened again and again and again. Now, Frank Pearson claims it's because Wadowitz was in a dispute with Warner Brothers over the fee for his life rights. Lizzie, how much money do you think they offered him for his life rights for the film? Well, maybe this didn't exist at the time. Isn't there something saying that you can't profit off of, like, story rights directly related to a crime committed, or is that just murder?

Lizzie, you're exactly right, but that law actually didn't exist yet. That law, the son of Sam law, went into effect in September of 1977, and it stipulated that, quote, profits gained from a written or dramatic reenactment of the crime of a convicted felon must be held in reserve for possible judgments in favor of the criminal's victims. So actually, some of that money went to child support and alimony payments for Carmen. And then in 1981, the bank manager, one of the hostages, Robert Barrett, was actually paid $30,000 plus $11,000 in interest, which went to medical bills. How much do I think? I don't know. $100,000. $50,000. $7,500. Feels a little low. He said, I got a wife and a couple of kids. How am I going to live on that?

What do you make in a week? End quote. Now, Pearson and Wadowitz never met. And Pearson started to freak out. Quote, I couldn't figure out who he was. Who was it who could induce these hostages to come around to his side to defend him and to become friendly towards him? So Pearson went to the record.

He had hours of interviews to pull from. Carmen Bufelko, the first wife, Wodewitz's mother, Terry, the police, the bank tellers. He also had input from journalist and gay rights advocate, Randy Wicker, who had spoken with Wadowitz and had written about him extensively. The problem became they each seemed to be describing a different person. Pearson couldn't make sense of who John was. Pearson wanted to quit. He wanted to walk out of the bank, but he couldn't, Lizzie, because he'd already taken the money and he'd spent it. So he couldn't give it back. So finally he decides there's one common theme to all the material. Quote, basically, he would be looking at you and he'd say, I'll take care of you,

I'll make you happy, and then he's going to fail. And that's the story of the bank. Now, to be clear, I'm not convinced that's who John was, but that is where Frank Pearson landed in crafting this character. So he finishes the script just after Christmas, 1973. The communications director of the National Gay Task Force did review the script before it went into production and reportedly said it was, quote, sensitive and tasteful. And the script was landing at exactly the right time. So, Bregman, for example, was celebrating the success of his first big producer credit and Pacino's follow-up to the godfather, Serpico, directed by Sidney Lumet, which was a very tough movie. It's sprawling. It covers years of Frank Serpico's life. It features hundreds of speaking roles.

It was shot on location in New York in just 51 days. Wow. Which is crazy fast for how many locations and how much time is covered in the script. Puccino's beard alone would take 51 days to grow. It's a good beard. It was nearly derailed by Dino de Laurentius in Post, who may or may not have inflated the budget by three to four million dollars in personal expenses, according to Martin Bregman. Who knows? What's a dollar here or there, Chris? What's a million here or there?

It would gross nearly 30 million dollars against an actual production budget of three million dollars. It was an extremely financially successful movie. I think it also proved that Al Pacino could be a leading man outside of Michael Corione in The Godfather, Part One. And there was a big silver lining, director Sidney Lumet. So he had actually been a late hire. I didn't know this, Lizzie.

He was brought in to replace John Aveltson, who would win Best Director for Rocky in a few years. Yeah. Ableton and Bregman did not get along, nor did he get along with the screenwriter. So he ended up leaving. They bring in Lumet. And Lumet at this point is known, you know,

as a professional journeyman director, right? So he broke out huge with what's now regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, 12 Angry Men, that was his debut. That got nominations for Best Director, best picture, best screenplay. His next two films, Long Day's Journey and Tonight, and the Pondbroker, also received Oscar nominations for their actors.

Am I right, though, in thinking that a lot of his early films are stage adaptations? Because 12 Angry Men, viewed from the bridge, Long Day's Journey Into Night, there's a run of like five or six that are all stage adaptations. They are, and a lot of them are New York based. So a big thing with Lumet is wanting to shoot in New York as opposed to L.A. And so, you know, he worked really steadily through the 60s and 70s, But if you look at his filmography, and these films were well received, don't get me wrong, but he only had one movie receive Oscar attention after his first three films.

And that was actually a documentary. He made a documentary about Martin Luther King Jr. called King, a filmed record Montgomery to Memphis. He co-directed it with Joseph Bancovitz. I've never seen this. So he carved out this niche for himself during the Autour era. And he's, I think, a little bit of a throwback in a certain sense. He is this reliable workhorse director.

He has a really unshoey style. I mean, even Lizzie, I rewatched Murder on the Orient Express for this episode. It's great. I love that movie. It's so fun. And he gives Albert Finney, for example, so much room to have fun as El Cue Pouardot in that movie by, again, preferring a camera that doesn't draw attention to itself. And he also uses music so sparingly, even in that movie. The lack of showiness in Dog Day Afternoon is remarkable because it would be so tempting to use this as an opportunity to, you know, go big or go home.

and he doesn't do that, and it's really effective. That's exactly right. He actually wanted no music in Serpico at all. He realized that DeLorentis was going to add it if he didn't, so he added it himself. And I think it would be better without music personally, no disrespect to the composer. But I think this belies a bit of a maverick streak to Lumet.

So you mentioned the stage adaptation. So Long Day's Journey in Tonight is centered around a dysfunctional American nuclear family. It deals with morphine addiction, alcoholism. The pawnbroker was the first movie made in the first movie made entirely in the U.S. to deal with the Holocaust from the perspective of a survivor. And it was an early film to feature a gay character. It was the first to feature a woman's full bare breasts that received Hayes Code production approval, which was kind of groundbreaking at the time. And again, he really focused on shooting in New York. He spurned Hollywood's sense of superiority in the movie biz. And Lizzie,

as you mentioned, he casts real-looking people through all of his movies. Interesting, dynamic, real-looking people. I don't think he was interested in the glitz and the glams. much, which will line up nicely with Pacino's sensibilities. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Lumet is kind of about to launch into a pretty amazing career second act. So according to Pearson, he, Al Pacino and Bregman and Elfin, the Marties, flew to Lumet in London to deliver the script in person. I believe he was prepping or shooting murder on the Orienne Express at this point in time. And so for Lumet, it's simple. He reads the script. He says the script is great, and he's in. And then all of a sudden, Al Pacino says, I don't know. I don't know about this guys. He agreed that the script was amazing. But back in his hotel room, drunk, he started to spiral. Quote, what was I doing with my life? Did I really want to get up there again? Holding a gut in my hands and committing crimes. Having starred in all of four movies, maybe I just didn't want to be a film actor anymore. You mentioned this, Lizzie. He was oscillating back and forth with the stage. He'd really come from the stage world. I remember he agreed with Brando's assertion.

when he was making the godfather, that acting in film was not an art. It was just a mechanical action, effectively. Right. He'd also been struggling with alcohol, and he carried a lot of personal burdens that I wonder if they were brought to the fore by the subject matter of this script.

So, for example, his mother had attempted suicide when he was young. She had been sent to Bellevue Hospital to recover. His father had walked out on him when he was young, much in the way that John Watowitz walked out on his own children. Pacino had long dreamed of pulling his mother out of poverty.

I think they had a really complicated relationship. There's a kind of beautiful passage from his memoir where he says, My mother once said to me that she had a dream about me. I was standing on some cliff like in Wuthering Heights with the wind blowing my hair, my face pale and undernourished. I was skinny and I looked so drained. I had no color in my face. That dream made her so sad.

How do you go from hearing that to saying, don't worry, I'm going to make it? And she actually died of a drug overdose in 1962 at the age of 43. Oh, Jesus. She was only in his early 20s. He was 10 years shy of the godfather and stuff. And it also may have been that he was going to be playing a gay man, which was an extremely risky move for an A-List actor in the early to mid-1970s. It's also possible he was just tired. He had done a long string of movies. We know the Godfather films were not easy to make. He struggled

with the Michael Corleone character also. And he knew that working for Lumet would be tough too. Lumet was, you know, a pretty demanding realism-based director. It was going to be, you know, long hours and it was going to be a difficult character. Well, and also at this point, I mean, when did the Godfather Part 2 come out? The Godfather Part 2 comes out in 1974. Right. So it's right around the time of these conversations. So he would have been either filming that or having just wrapped filming it. Yeah. Yes. That's exactly right. So for whatever reason or reasons, Al Pacino had doubts and was on the fence. And Village Voice journalist, Arthur Bell, had doubts. So in his coverage of the event, he wrote that John Wadowitz told him the idea to rob the bank had come from a Chase Manhattan bank executive he'd met at Danny's, a Greenwich Village gay bar. The executive told him how he could rob a branch of $150,000 to $200,000.

Of course, Lizzie, as we see in the movie, the money had been picked up at 11 a.m. Before they get there, leaving them, Wadowitz and Natchadale, with $29,000, according to Bell's reporting. But the thing is, that actually would have been more than enough for Elizabeth E. Eden's gender reassignment surgery. Yeah. So, according to John, they had broken up in April of that year. Eden had attempted suicide on her birthday, August 19th, three days before the robbery. And he says that that is what convinced him to pay for the operation.

He wanted to break her out of Bellevue, get her the operation to, quote, save his life. But Arthur Bell later reported that, quote, according to at least two inmates, this was a mob-backed operation. The Gambino family head, Carlo, was under indictment for conspiracy to rob a chase armored truck a few years prior, and these inmates allege that at least one of the guns, Little John Basso or John Watowitz used, was provided by a mob source. Quote, the sex change story was peripheral to the real motive, end quote. I'm inclined to believe it. Liz Eden says this on television. Oh, really? Years later, after John's been released from prison and he stuck to this narrative, she actually confronts him and says,

tell them the real reason, tell them the real reason, he was in debt to the mob from our wedding. And I also think, you know, like, there is, which I think they do a good job of exploring in the movie, but there is a bit of a cop-out happening to say that, like, you're doing this extremely risky, dangerous thing where people could potentially and do get killed because it's, I want to get the money for my wife. And it's like, there's about a hundred other ways you could have gotten that money for your wife. Like, you want something else out of this. Well, John's sexuality is what seemed to stick in the mainstream media coverage. Some refer to it as a, quote, gay robbery. He was frequently described as, quote, an admitted homosexual and Elizabeth Eden as his, quote, male wife or lover,

in quotes. This was novel, at least in the straight media, because, as Arthur Bell put it, quote, homosexuals are supposed to be victims, and here's a tough guy, John Dillinger, Victor. But that's not the only reason people were fascinated. As you mentioned, Lizzie, why? Wadowitz walked outside of the bank, shook hands with the cops, told them to back up, threw $2,000 in cash out the door to pay for pizza. After he demanded the police send hamburgers. He'd say that he didn't want to hurt anyone, but he'd also say things like, quote, the Supreme Court will let me get away with this.

There's no death penalty. It's ridiculous. I can shoot everyone in here, then throw my gun down and walk out and they can't put me in the electric chair, end quote. Yeah, I mean, he's not a stable gentleman. No. The police needed a new strategy in dealing with John Wattowitz, and Martin Bregman needed a new strategy in dealing with Al Pacino. So Pacino flew back to New York.

He was out of the movie. Martin Bregman called him up and said, read the script one more time. And Puccino said, that's absurd. No. And Bregman gets uncharacteristically gentle and says, why don't you give it a read for me, do it? I really need you to read it.

So he does reluctantly. And he calls Bregman back and goes, why am I not doing this film? In a more recent interview, Puccino says that Bregman basically strong-armed him by saying we have somebody else who wants to do it, who's notorious. who's famous, he doesn't say the name, but the suggestion is that it's Dustin Hoffman.

Yeah, that would make sense. Who Pacino has been competing with and kind of been in the shadow of for the first few years of his career. Bregman says he only ever wanted to make it with Al. It's possible both are true. It's possible he made the suggestion, even if it was completely a false threat. Pacino was in, but he had conditions. If they were going to do this, they were going to do it for real. So Lizzie, for the second time in three years, he's playing a real New Yorker after Frank Serpico,

and he was going to be putting a lot of himself into the role, maybe more than ever before. His nickname in real life is Sunny, as the character goes by in this movie. In his memoir, he wrote, this time, I was careful to cast the film where I could with actors I had already worked with people who knew the real me and not just the image, end quote. And this suited Sidney Lumet just fine because he didn't want big names. He wanted a realistic movie. Penalope Allen was cast as the head teller, Sylvia. Puccino described her and her husband is his adopted family. She actually has a great role in Scarecrow, if you guys want to check it out. She's Pacino's estranged wife, Annie. They actually never share the screen, but they have a great

phone call scene together toward the end of the film. Judith Molina gets brought into play Sunny's mother. She co-founded the Living Theater, where Pacino and Martin Sheena had worked together, cleaning toilets and laying down rugs when they were first getting started. Sully Boyar was cast as the bank manager, Mulvaney. Puccino had known him for 15 years. He'd also, he plays a doctor very briefly in The Panic in Needle Park, which was Pacino's first leading role, and he has an uncredited role in Serpico. Charles Durning, Lizzie, who you mentioned, read for Mulvaney, but was cast as Sergeant Moretti, which is what Pacino wanted him for. And they actually, Pacino and Dernino were supposed to be in a play together in 1968, but the producer Joseph Papp wanted to fire Pacino,

and Dernick says, no, keep him, please keep him, and then Papp fired him anyway. Oh, no. And then Carol Cain gets hired to play Jenny or The Squirrel, hiding under the desk. You probably recognize her Lizzie from what television show most recently. Most recently would, is that Kimmy Schmidt? Yeah, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Yeah, but I mean also, of course, the Princess Bride and so many other things, love Kriel Kane. Yeah.

James Broderick wanted to play Moretti, but Lumet cast him as FBI agent Sheldon. Lance Henrickson actually wanted to play Leon. Oh. But he was cast as FBI agent Murphy. And then you have Sandra Kazan as Deborah, Marsha Jean-Claq as Miriam. Again, a number of these folks were in, for example, the panic at Meadle Park. Amy Levitt is Maria, John Mariette as Howard. And did you recognize Dominique Chienisi as Sonny's father?

He had just done the Godfather Part 2 with him as Johnnyola. You see him only in darkness in this movie. You barely see him for a moment. He plays Uncle Jr. in The Sopranos. Yes. Oh, my gosh. I did not recognize him. I recognized his voice and I couldn't place it.

Yeah, exactly. His voice is very, very distinct. So the most unexpected higher, Lizzie, now that you know the age of Sal Natta Rale... It's John Cazel. John Cazal. So there was a little confusion when somebody suggested 39-year-old actor,

John Cazel, especially because Sal, in the... script is described as a, quote, 15-year-old Bonicelli Angel. This is a 39-year-old man. Yeah. A number of sources say the suggestion came from Pacino, but he says it was actually Charles Durning's idea. And Pearson says, this guy's the furthest thing from what I envisioned. And Sidney Lumet agreed. In fact, he says that unlike John Watowich and Sal Naturalale and the rest of America, he hadn't yet seen the godfather. So he had not seen Cazale as Frato. Yeah. Wow.

So let's talk a little bit about who Sal Natura really was, because there's frustrating little about him in the coverage of the events from that day. We do know he was probably 18 or 19 years old. According to Stephen Brockleman, he worked at the penny candy store on 10th Street. Brockleman was his manager. He'd hired Natadale a few months prior. He said he was a hard worker, polite, always punctual. And at roughly 5 p.m., Sal called the penny candy store, saying, I know I'm late. I'm probably not going to be in today because we're holding up a bank. And then Brockleman turned on the radio. And this is. what he'd heard. I'd like to play a clip from the events of the day. going on now? We're waiting to negotiate the release of the people so we can get out of here.

And what are your terms for release? Well, I want them to deliver my wife here from Kings County Hospital. When they deliver me and my wife, I'll release one of the hostages. So that was John Wadowitz. Yeah. Speaking to the news. Shortly after, Sal told his manager he needed to go, quote, I think there are police at the back door. And as you see in the film, Lizzie, one round is fired in the real events by John Wattowicz when the police came to the back door. I did read that Naturae's motivation for the robbery was that he wanted to pay to remove his sisters from foster care. And that's why he was participating in the robbery. And he had been promised $50,000 for his part. That was going to be his split. Now, Pacino and Casal had gotten their start together. In 1968,

they both won Obie Awards for their performances in the off-Broadway play. The Indian wants the Bronx. Kassal comes in and reads the part. It breaks Lumet's heart the way that he performs it. And all of a sudden, he kind of becomes the heart of the movie in a lot of ways. Now, finding Leon was as tough as getting Elizabeth Eden out of Bellevue and down to the bank. They considered a lot of actors, including, as I mentioned, Lance Henriksen. Some secondary sources claim that trans actress Elizabeth Coffee was considered, but ultimately deemed too pretty. We could not find a primary source to verify that, though. And so the role went to the relatively unknown Chris Sarandon, a cisgender actor who Pacino and Casal had worked with who'd never acted in a

movie before. Lizzie, I'd like to show you a photograph of Elizabeth Eden on the day. Oh, wow. Okay. So they went pretty accurate with it. I believe so. I actually think Chris Sarandon's performance is very respectful and accurate to Elizabeth Eden on the day. I mean, I thought his performance was amazing, but I'm glad to hear that it, you know, it seems like it was pretty drawn from reality. Yeah. So Lumet has his cast. He has. as is locations, they're going to shoot in a vacant automotive repair shop with a lift in the floor. The upper level is going to house dressing rooms and production offices. The lower level is going to be the bank.

And in the basement, Pacino's going to live in an apartment. So Pacino lived under the set when they were making this movie. Good times. Across the street, there's a vacant storefront that's going to be the barbershop. And yet, it feels like it's all going to come crashing down at any moment. Pacino, according to Lumet, nearly pulled out just before rehearsals began. and Lumet was also terrified about the audience reaction. He said that he doesn't normally worry about the audience.

But, quote, when you touch on sex and death, two aspects of life that hit a deep core, there's no way of knowing what an audience will do. They could laugh at the wrong places, cat call, start trying to talk back to the screen, any of a hundred defenses that people throw up when they're embarrassed, when what's on screen is getting too close or when they're looking at something they've never confronted before, end quote. I think Lumet is trying very hard to tell the story honestly, but also to do it in a way where he feels the audience will not be able to fall back on defense mechanisms and distance themselves from the material. So he decided to tell the actors to play themselves so it would feel as real as possible. No accents, no costumes.

He offered a $2 per day raise to anybody who brought their own clothes to wear to the set. Quote, I want to see Shelly and Carol and Al and John and Chris up there. You're just temporarily borrowing the names of the people in the script, no characterizations, only you. Which is when one of the actors said, can I use my own words? And for the first time in his career, Sidney Lumet said yes.

So they started recording the rehearsals. They would take the improvised dialogue, type it up, polish it, and work it back into the script, which is how they developed the phone calls between Sunny and Leon and Sunny and Angie. Leon was supposed to come in yelling from the start, but we met and the actors realized the material was already emotionally charged.

They came up with a softer approach, you see in the movie, where Leon scared as he's speaking to Sunny in these scenes. And in the end, Lumet estimated that 60% of the screenplay was improvised. Wow. Now, he also said, we faithfully followed Pearson's construction scene by scene. And Pearson wasn't kicked aside. He gave his blessing. Lumet asked him to come to the rehearsal hall 10 days in to review everything with Lumet and start rewriting. And then Pacino was out again. He had an issue with one scene in the script. So Sonny calls for his wife, Leon. She arrives. And instead of just talking on the phone, they meet in person out front of the bank and they kiss.

Pacino later wrote in his memoir, I thought this is absurd. It didn't happen that way. Not only was it not true, it was overly exaggerated, a comedic send-up that sort of minimized the situation. According to another source, Pacino asked Pearson,

when your relationships came to an end, how often does sex come into it? And Pearson said, never, that's not what it's about. And Pacino said, why can't you make a picture about two people who love each other and can't find a way to live with each other?

We are dealing with human beings, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. He wondered if the cops would even allow it. Yeah. But the thing is, there was a kiss during the robbery. It just wasn't between Wadowitz and Elizabeth Eden. It was actually between Wattowitz and his ex-lover, Pat Coppola, another man,

who came down to the front of the bank, and in John Wattowicz's words, he opened the door and he, quote, tonged him in front of the cops. He said as a way of defiance against the police at this time. But what's complicated is Elizabeth Eden has said that the reason she didn't go to the front of the bank is because she knew that John was going to try to drag her inside to put her on the plane and that if she did not go with him, he would murder her in front of the bank, which John more or less corroborates

on live television after the fact. Jesus Christ. And he had put a gun to her head, for example, as is described in the film. Yeah, this is the part of the movie that I both appreciated and also, I think, struggled with the most is that the accounts of the women in the film

are that he is volatile and dangerous, and it sounds like he was volatile and dangerous. And so while you feel very sympathetic towards him, there's also, I think, played very well by Chris Sarandon, there is this real question of like, is this person being abused by him? It seems like yes is the answer. So Pearson suggested in another interview that Pacino was uncomfortable with any reference to sex and did not want to come face to face with Sarandon's character. Pacino has said he had no issues with the character's sexuality, but he wanted the kiss cut. The kiss was cut. After three weeks of rehearsals, production began in September of 1974.

And Lizzie, it was cold. It's supposed to be hot. It's the dog day afternoon. But the fall in New York was so cold that Lumet could see the actor's breath on certain days. So, to have their breath match the air, they would have to put ice in their mouths before they would do the scenes.

Which, oh my God, can you imagine doing dialogue scenes after having ice in your mouth for that long? No. Whoa, dog day afternoon. It would be impossible. He also had concocted his own mixture of glycerin and water to use as fake sweat, which is a trick he used on 12 Angry Men,

and that's a lot of what you're seeing in this movie. They're so wet in this movie. They're so wet. Now, for Pacino, the struggle was, again, finding John Wadowitz. He couldn't find him. Lumet said that early on, Pacino, quote, kept looking for disguises,

like a mustache. He actually started the movie with a mustache, and Lumet thought it looked terrible. So at the end of the day, Pacino agrees, and he says, can we reshoot the whole day without the mustache? They lose the mustache.

But the way that Pacino tells it, it wasn't about the mustache. He actually said that he looked at the dailies and he thought, quote, I'm playing nobody. I don't have a character. I need to be a person here because I don't see a person. So he went home, stayed up all night, drinking a half gallon of white wine and trying to find his character.

The next day he came to set and started playing Sonny as, quote, more animated, antsy and agitated. And his friends started whispering saying, is Al having a nervous breakdown? No, that's just what half a gallon of white wine will do to you. Apparently it was the only approach that worked. He stuck with this for all six weeks of shooting. And then Sidney Lumet got a call from the studio about a scene that he'd cut.

So originally, they were supposed to play Sunny and Leon's wedding tape on television. This was going to be how the hostages and the audience were going to first meet Leon was going to be through this video of the wedding, which there was real video footage of their wedding, taken by Randy Wicker, I believe at the time, the journalist. Lumet decided not to shoot this. His reasoning was that the audience would stop taking Pacino or the movie seriously. It would be too sensationalized, basically. So he decided he just wanted to show a still picture of Leon on the television.

He said that he felt the studio wanted the scene to, quote, create notoriety for the movie, which is why he decided to cut it. He also said he removed the scene from the script two weeks prior, and no one had noticed. So when the studios had put it back in, he said, no, I already shot the scene in which the tape plays on the television. I can't do that. The studio exec hung up on him.

So I agree with Lumet's decision here. I do too. I think he is being smart in terms of, anticipating audience reactions to certain things, fortunately or unfortunately. There are four key scenes that were heavily improvised on set, Lizzie. So there's a couple scenes between Sunny and Moretti. I believe, although I could not confirm, the moment when Sunny says, kiss me. And Moretti says, what?

And he seems genuinely confused. He says, kiss me. I like getting kissed when I'm getting fucked. I think that was pretty improvised. But the next is arguably the funniest and saddest line in the movie, which we talked about earlier, Lizzie. What one word is so tragic in this movie? Wyoming. It's because Sunny asks Sal, you know,

What country do you want to go to because they're discussing getting the jet? It's like anywhere. You can go anywhere. Where in the world do you want to go? And he goes, Wyoming. And he has to explain to him, that's not a country. He's like, that's okay. Apparently, that was all Cazal.

And Lumet said that he nearly ruined the take with his reaction. He had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing. And then finally, perhaps the most famous scene in the film, What does Pacino yell, Lizzie, when he starts throwing the money outside? Attica! Attica! I always assumed that must have happened on the day of the robbery. It did not.

Al Pacino said that assistant director, Bert Harris, whispered to him, say Attica. And Pacino said, what? And Bert Harris says, say Attica. Pachino goes, Attica! And apparently, the crowd went wild. Well, it had just happened, hadn't it? Just a couple years earlier. It had just happened in a couple years earlier.

That's right. About a year prior to John Wadowitz's ill-fated robbery, there were the Attica prison riot. inmates were protesting poor living conditions. Things escalated. They ended up taking guards and other staff hostage. Eventually, the police used deadly force to end the four-day standoff, and they killed more than 42 people, including some of the hostages, inmates and prison

staff. It's kind of amazing that that was an improvised moment on set, because in the same way that Wyoming also comes back again later, that also comes back in terms of, you know, the reason that there's real fear for everyone involved, including the hostages of the cops, is their point being like the cops will kill everybody. They don't care. Oh, yeah. And that comes back multiple times of, you know,

Sunny saying, I'm not going to take you outside with me. I'm going to take a woman because they're less likely to kill her. They would probably just kill you. Like, it's amazing to me that they are able to sort of patchwork together this quilt and keep all of these loops coming back, even though so much of it was improvised. I agree. Shooting wrapped in November of 1974 after six weeks of production, John Wattowicz's standoff lasted 13 hours.

At 2 a.m., Shirley Ball, one of the tellers, stood in the front door of the bank and shouted at the FBI, enough is enough. Do you want to trade eight lives for two? Don't stretch our luck. Give them their demands. She could have walked away, but she followed John Wadowitz back into the bank. She said, quote,

I couldn't have lived with myself afterwards, end quote. Wadowitz demanded a jet. They offered him four drivers for the limousine to the airport. He picked the smallest one, Special Agent Murphy. At 4.45 a.m., Wadowitz, Natarali, and the hostages loaded into a limousine to make their way to Kennedy Airport, driven by Special Agent Murphy. That is the only other name besides Sal that I believe was not changed for the script,

just those two men. So Lumet said that they tried to, quote, stay as simple and honest and real as we could. Enter Editor Dede Allen. Editor Edie Dedea Allen had cut Serpico, The Hustler, Bonnie and Clyde, and many, many more films, an incredible editor. She comes on to the picture, they trim it down, they watch the first cut, and you mentioned the pacing, Lizzie, because the first thing Lumet felt was that the movie was too fast. They actually added six to seven minutes back in, because when they got to Sunny drafting his will, it felt slow and didn't have the emotional impacts that they wanted.

And then Lumet got a frantic call from Martin Bregman. Al Pacino wants a cut in the scene where he reads The Will. Reportedly, Pacino wanted to cut the line where Sonny says, and to Ernie, whom I have loved as no man has ever loved another man. End quote. According to one biography on Pacino, quote, only after a gallon of black coffee and some highly persuasive fast talk was it agreed that the scene play as it was, end quote.

there are two ways to interpret this. On the one hand, you could say, Puccino seems uncomfortable with playing a gay character. He does not want to do the gay kiss. On the other hand, you could say this line could be taken humorously in the wrong way. It could seem exaggerated to an audience, and they might laugh, and there might be a fear of that. I'm curious what you think, Lizzie. I don't know. Perhaps I am prone to, you know, think the best of Puccino in this situation, but from everything you've told me and also from the fact that it doesn't see. like his issue with doing this movie from the beginning had anything to do with the lead character's sexuality. I think if that were an issue, he wouldn't have done it. He didn't need to do it. And it's not

like that was something that was hidden in the script. It's not like that's something that wasn't a major, major plot point and part of the character. So I am inclined to believe that this doesn't have to do with that. I just don't think he would have done the movie. And especially given some the other things that he's said. It sounds to me like he is, to your point, maybe rightfully, or at least concerned about, you know, how certain things will play and how they can kind of walk that tightrope with the audience at this point in time. Lumet got his way with that scene. It stayed. It's a great scene. He also got his way with the music. There's only one piece of music in this entire film. The opening song, it's Amarina by Elton John. D.D. Allen picked it. Lumet decided

to keep it after seeing the rough cut. The lyrics include the line, lately I've been thinking, how much I miss my lady, it was released about a year before Elton John came out. Oh, wow. Lumette said the studio loved the film. They pulled it off. John and Sal, not so much. They made it to the airport, but they never got on a plane. Sal Natalé was shot dead by Special Agent Murphy, the driver of the limousine.

John Wadowitz was arrested, and on September 23rd, 1973, after he had attempted suicide, he was sentenced to 20 years for armed robbery. As Newsday reported, the families of all three robbers seem more embarrassed by the homosexuality than the armed robbery. And not everyone in the gay community wanted to be associated with Watowitz. Yeah, that adds up. He seems like a bit of a wildcard. Even before this incident, there was a general sense that Watowitz was unstable. He was well-known, but not necessarily well-liked. He'd now taken hostages, robbed a bank, gotten someone killed, all during a pivotal time for the gay rights movement.

Arthur Bell of the Village Voice said there were discussions at GAA after the robbery where people debated, did it or didn't it, should it or shouldn't it relate to the gay liberation movement? Members of the gay liberation movement, including yours truly, are having a hell of a time figuring out how the whole little John thing relates to gay liberation and what we can do about it, if anything. One gay activist in Brooklyn told a reporter, I was proud to see him ask for his lover, but I don't condone the crime. The so-called straight world has to understand that we have problem people too. And those most impacted by John's choices were feeling duped by Warner Brothers also.

Around the time that the movie wrapped production, Newsday published an article stating, most of the people involved in the incident have had no contact with the movie people since they signed releases more than a year ago. Some of them are a little miffed about that. They were expecting to be called in as technical advisors at the very least. That actually includes gay activist Randy Wicker, who was described in early press as a consultant but did not end up credited on the movie. So Dog Day Afternoon was released in the United States on December 25, 1975,

and there was some fear amongst the gay community about the release of this film. Some pushed it for a boycott. And there were some strong reactions. Later on, in 1981, Vito Russo, who we just discussed in our episode with Raina Deerwater of Glad, kind of lacerated the film in his book, The Celluloid Closet. He argued that it was, quote, The Ultimate Freak Show, a film that used the sensational side of a true story to titillate a square audience. But But at the release, much of the criticism was positive, if nuanced, even from the gay community. So one critic from the LGBTQ newspaper The Barb wrote about the moment in the movie in which it is revealed that Sunny is in a relationship with Leon.

With the story out, the country has its first openly gay folk hero. As things begin to fall apart, I wonder if straits will appreciate the tragedy as Sunny is rejected by the one he did it all for, or will they just be waiting for the final shootout? Well, I think what I like about the movie is that perhaps the one he did it all for, it might be himself, but yes. Walter White. Another critic from the Fifth Freedom wrote, Sydney Lumet's film stars Al Pacino as a person,

in this case a bank robber, who happens to be gay, as opposed to, say, the boys in the band, whose stars play gays, who incidentally may be people. The emphasis here is more than a semantic one. It suggests that our sexual preferences complement, but do not overshadow our shared humanity.

And I think that's what we've been waiting for in a film. However, he does go on to say that he shares the frustration of those who see the film as another anti-gay exploitation film, but, quote, what Lumet is saying, I think, suggests that anyone is susceptible to the systematic dehumanization that urban life subjects us to. Sunny and Sal, the bank robbers, are both lost souls whose lives seem to be ruled by the technology

that was supposed to serve us, end quote. A very prescient review. On the mainstream straight media side, things were similarly, generally, fairly positive. Richard Shickle at Time Magazine praised Pacino and Casal's performance, but he wrapped up his review with, quote, one tries to be sympathetic in the nothing human is alien to me manner, but the viewer leaves the theater with that most devastating of disclaimers,

this has nothing to do with me. But audiences didn't seem to agree. Dog Day Afternoon was very popular amongst audiences and the Academy. It was nominated for six Oscars, Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, actor in a leading role for Al Pacino, actor in a supporting role for Chris Sarandon, Not John Casal.

Interesting. And film editing, Dede Allen. At the same time, Warner Brothers was being sued by Wadowitz's estranged wife, Carmen Bufelco, for invasion of privacy and unauthorized use of her name and portrait in the movie, and the subsequent novelization of the movie. They were also being sued by Elizabeth Eden, and they were being sued by John Wattowitz. The Oscars that year were dominated by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which won Best Director, Picture, and Actor.

Sarandon lost to George Byrne and The Sunshine Boy. and D.D. Allen lost to Verna Fields, Jaws. Oh. Al Pacino did not attend the ceremony. He reportedly told a journalist, fame is a perversion of the natural human instinct for validation and attention. The sole winner that night was Frank Pearson,

best original screenplay, which is the element of the movie that John Wadowitz could not stand. So, Lizzie, let's talk about how John Wadowitz felt about this movie, and let's talk about one of your early points of criticism that he agreed with. In late 1974, a spokesman

for the prison where Wadowitz was serving his sentence said that, quote, the homosexual aspects of the film might eliminate it from the prison's film program, end quote. But the movie did screen there twice. Wadowitz basically said that he told the warden he was going to incite a prison riot if they did not put the movie on. He's got a style. So he first watched it by himself with a guard on October 3rd, 1975. He said it was, quote, a very moving experience.

There was then a second screening with other inmates two days later. We're going to talk about John's view of the film and excerpts, but to understand his perspective, you should read his whole review, which he's sent to the New York Times. They declined to publish, but is available online. He called The Reading of the Will, one of the most moving scenes I've ever seen in a motion picture. He hailed Al Pacino, said he deserved an Oscar.

He also called out Sarandon as having captured Elizabeth Eden. He said the entire cast was outstanding and monumental, and Lumet was fantastic. But he also said, the movie was, in essence, a piece of garbage. Okay. He felt deeply hurt. My feelings overall in the movie were that it was a good comedy, but I did not think it was funny because it was about me and my loved ones.

Even though the movie opens with the statement that it is based on a true incident, he estimated that it was only 30% true. He says, for example, he never spoke to his mother outside the bank. He also never spoke with Carmen on the phone. And he felt that Carmen was misrepresented. Quote, I did not like the horrible way that they tried to make her the blame or the scapegoat for everything that happened, inferring that I left her and wind it up. in the arms of a gay man because of her."

End quote. I don't get the impression that that's necessarily what they're implying, but she is a nag. Yes, I agree. My sister, Jessie, had a very strong reaction to her character, did not like the way they represented her character.

I did not have that reaction initially, but after watching the documentary of the dog, and when you get more insight into John's experience, he was dating her, he then went to Vietnam, he had his first sexual experience with a man in Vietnam, realized that he enjoyed it,

he returned, then married her and then continued to pursue sex with men after that. It's much more complicated than I think the way things are portrayed in the film, for example. But the most important distinction or a problem he has with the movie is the way that the film made it seem like Sal had to die. I regret the things that happened, but most of all that my friend, Sal, who was only 18 years old, was murdered by the FBI. It was not necessary for them to murder him because he had been immobilized and unable to do anything, but yet the FBI murdered him before my eyes, I was also immobilized and unable to do anything.

Okay, according to Special Agent Murphy, when they arrived at the airport, Barrett, the manager, was supposed to be freed. He refused. So instead, one of the women behind Murphy in the car was let out. This created an opening between Murphy and Sal. Murphy then goes outside to talk to Baker, his boss, to figure out how they can make a move on John and Sal.

And they do make a move on them almost identical to what you see in the film. There's a concealed gun that Murphy has. He pushes Sal's in the real life. It's a shotgun to the ceiling. And then he shoots Sal in the chest, not in the head as portrayed in the film. Sal then was declared dead by the time that he made it to the hospital. Now, Special Agent Murphy says that when he went to see the movie with his wife, the crowd booed when Sal was killed. According to Murphy, after this, he was cornered by relatives who couldn't understand how

he could have shot that guy. At the same time, Wadowitz's cellmates couldn't understand how he could have gone along with Sal's murder. Because in the film, it's insinuated that the FBI tells John or Sunny at the front of the bank that they will deal with Sal. And yet, he continues to work with the FBI in these negotiations. Do you remember that moment? You know, I do, but I thought that the way that it played was almost that he was confused by what they were saying. Not that he was going along with it, but that it was like an added wrinkle that he was sort of not able to process until they do end up killing Sal. I actually read it the way that the other inmates seem to have read it, which is that, yes, that he knew that Sal was going to be in the line of fire. He's hoping things will work out. But the fact that he has not alerted Sal to this is a betrayal. That's true. His cell was set on fire. ransacked multiple times. He was attacked repeatedly and put in protective custody. He was also gangraped multiple times in prison because people knew he was gay when he arrived. After the film came out, Frank Pearson was approached by a journalist who knew Wadowitz. He told him that Wadowitz had been put in solitary confinement for two years because of the movie's implication that Sunny had sold Sal out to the FBI. So Frank Pearson wrote to the editor of the prison newspaper and asked if they'd be

interested in running an article about how a screenwriter goes about dramatizing a real-life crime. So he wrote the article and he tried to subtly embed the story of how he made up the Sal and Sunny detail. But as of 2001, he said, to this day, I still don't know, knowing what I know now, what I would do about that. What is our obligation as members of society? So let's talk a little bit about the obligations to those depicted in these films. So Dog Day Afternoon grossed roughly $50 million against a $1.8 million budget. The hostages were paid $600 each. for their rights. Carmen Bufulco, John Watowitz's wife, later said, and John said this too, that she was paid $50 for her rights, which is $40 more than the $10 cab fare John left her the first time he

walked out in 1969. She divorced John in 1983, worked three jobs, put herself through college, she started going to therapy with her two children. She worked for 25 years as an education associate for children with special needs in the public school system, and she died in 2013. John Wadowitz was ultimately paid $7,500 for the rights of his story, plus 1% of the net profits. For comparison, Robert Stroud, the inmate depicted in the Birdman of Alcatraz, was reportedly paid $25,000 and 10% of the net 10 years earlier. Wow. $5,000 went to Watowitz's lawyer. The rest went to Elizabeth Eden to pay for her operation.

John was released from prison in 1979. He and Elizabeth Eden also divorced. She died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1987. Special Agent Murphy's son. died of cancer in 1992 when he was only 12 years old, and at the suggestion of his wife, he became an ordained deacon in 1999. And John Wadowitz decided to embrace the fame of Dog Day Afternoon. He started calling himself the dog. He would take photographs outside of Chase Bank, the one that he'd robbed, including photographs wearing a shirt that said, I robbed this bank. I don't know if I would love

that if I worked in that bank. I don't think folks did. He continued to perpetuate the story that he had done this for love. It's a story that stuck. And he continued to pursue the fame that he had been granted for a brief moment of time until his death of cancer in 2006. Bob Kapsdatter, the reporter who'd spoken with Wattowitz, on the phone during the robbery, apparently reconnected with him in 1979 when he was released from prison, and he asked him, after everything, if he'd learned anything. And according to Bob Wadowitz said, yeah, don't rob a bank.

Okay. And that is our coverage on Dog Day afternoon, Lizzie. So I have to ask you, what went right? Wow, that was fascinating. Thank you for walking us through that, trying to parse out what really happened. I feel like I don't totally know. I, you know, I really have to give the what went right here to Al Pacino, just because this is a very tough role to play. I think it could so easily have been played in a way that, you know, to your initial point, could have come across as funny. Even though he does have line reads in this that are funny and he is, you know, bumbling and nervous, but

You still care about him so much, and it feels very serious, and it feels, I think, more anxiety-inducing than it feels funny. And I think a lot of that is due to Pacino's performance. He really seems to be treating this like a human being and not shying away from the more complicated elements of this person, although, as we learned over the course of this episode, there are certain elements of the scripts that he shied away from. We don't know why. But yeah, I just think he's amazing in this. I agree that this is his best performance. You know, we get to the screaming Pacino later, which is also fun. But boy, do I enjoy early Al Pacino, quiet Al Pacino. He gets to yell in this, obviously, he does a little bit of yelling, but for the most part, he's just so, his performance is so small in a way

that's really lovely. And he remains small and very human in what could easily have gotten out of hand. I agree. I think he is wonderful in this movie. We did like a Pacino Lumet run from 71 through 75, and then we watched The Dog, the documentary about John Wadowitz, and it was so fun, just movie after movie and seeing the ways he's growing as a performer and changing. I'd like to give my What Went Right to Sydney Lumet. I think this is a masterfully directed film. I completely understand the criticism and apprehension from the gay community at the time. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't disagree, especially with the notion that really the first story you're going to give us with a gay hero, where his sexuality is incidental, is going to be the one where he is a bank robber and an abusive person.

You know what I mean? Totally. That is very valid. I'm just going to go from the perspective of once the subject matter was selected, I think Lumet does a very admirable job of shepherding it forward in a way that, to me, does not feel exploitative or sensationalized. And I understand that there are definitely people who disagree with that, and I understand why. But for me, I think he does a very lovely job with this movie.

The last thing I want to mention, I do think watching the documentary The Dog is very much worth it. It was released in 2013. John Wadowitz was a very complicated person. Elizabeth Eden was a very complicated person. I think you could describe John as opportunistic at best, predatory at worst, in the way that he pursued sexual relationships. He's basically a self-admitted sex addict, the way he describes himself in that movie. Elizabeth Eden has her own complications in those areas of her life that we don't. don't need to get into here, but you'll get a little bit of a glimpse of if you watch that

documentary. But I think what the documentary does ultimately do is it shows John is still a person. Again, he's a strange person. He's a complicated person. And I'm not even talking about his sexuality. It's just an unusual braggadocious in your face personality. But as you watch him in this film and then eventually candidly, you watch him die, he just feels more and more human and real. And I agree with you. I think Pacino does a very good job finding the humanity behind somebody who is so, larger than life, you know what I mean, in the way he presents himself. Yeah. And I really appreciate that. So check out the documentary. It's very much worth your guys' time. And if you're interested in supporting this podcast, Lizzie, can you let the folks know at home a few easy ways they can do so?

I sure can. You can leave us a rating or review on whatever podcaster you're listening to this on. You can tell a friend or a family member about what went wrong. You can also, as we said at the top of this episode, you can now subscribe on Apple and Spotify, where you can get bonus episodes as well as and add-free feed. You can also, of course, for $5 a month, join our Patreon where you will get all of that plus access to our fan community. We really enjoy engaging with you guys there. We do polls. We do newsletters. We do a lot of things over there. There will be some live streams coming up, which we will announce a little later. So please, if you want all that and more join Patreon. And then if you want all that and more and more in a bag of chips, for $50 a month, you can get a

shout out, just like one of these. We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you a bizarre and rapidly evolving situation. A 37-year-old podcast host has locked himself in his studio with 50 civilians and is demanding $50 from every one of them, or he is going to, quote, stop making this podcast. Let's go to Bill on the scene. Thanks, Mike. What we're seeing here honestly defies explanation. Not only does this man demand $50, he claims to have captured awarded Thespian and national treasure James McAvoy inside. I'm sorry to cut you off there, Bill, but we've been informed that this Mr. Winterbauer is on the line with us now.

We are going to him live in three, two. Mr. Winterbauer, when will you release the hostages? What are you talking about? What, thank God, send the police in. They won't let me leave. Are you telling me that these people are willingly listening to your podcast? They're paying me $50 a month to keep doing it. I don't understand why.

Well, you heard it here first. Stockholm Syndrome, definitely a real thing. Okay, look, I need to start reading their names. don't read their names, we are never going to get through this. So just to be clear, this is not a self-serving exercise. You are doing this at the behest of these people. In fact, one might say that you, sir, are a hostage of your own success. Yes, to be clear, this isn't for me, this is for them.

Well, I guess the proof will be in the pudding. What's the first name? It's, I have the biggest man crush on Chris Winterbauer. We're cutting it off there. Our station has a policy against promoting cults on the air, but I've just been told that we did get a list of the hostages. in case any friends of family would like to speak to them about this complete waste of $50. Adrian Pang Correa, Alex Barrett, Angeline Renee Cook, Ben Shindleman, Blaze Ambrose,

Ryan Donahue, Brittany Morris, Brooke, Cameron Smith, C Grace B, Chris Leal, Datum 3, David Friskalante, Darren and Dale Conkling, M Zodia, Evan Downey, Felicia G, film it yourself, Frankenstein, Galen and Miguel the Broken Glass Kids, the cast and crew of Winner Trip to Browntown, Half-Gray, Half-Hray, I have the biggest man crush on Chris Winterbauer. That one was clearly written by the hostage taker. Awarded Despion and National Treasure, James McAvoy, Jason Frankel, J.J. Rapido, John D. Wiltshire, Jory Hill Piper, Jose Amelano Salto D'Georgio, Karina Kelle Arrington, Amy Orgesaga McCoy, Lena, L.J., Lousy Susan, Lydia Howes, Andy Rarlison, Mark Bertha, Matthew Jacobson, Michael McGrath, Nate Ashley, Nate the Knife, Pete Ree Peterson,

Rosemary Southwood, Rural juror, Sadie, Just Sadie, Soman Chianani, Susanne Johnson, the Provost Family, the O's Sound Like O's, oh, oh, goodness, and it looks like he has his own father in there with him, Steve Winterbauer, sir, you should have done better with that young man. And we'll conclude this segment with an announcement from Armea. They have pledged to make podcasting equipment far more expensive so that tragedies like these do not occur moving forward. All right. Well, thank you so much for that Chris, I really, I loved watching this movie. I loved learning about this.

This was fascinating. Next week. We got another crime buddy comedy that we're jumping into. We're staying on the outlaw train and covering one of my favorite movies of all time. Chris, what is it? I was looking at his filmography. I think this is Ridley Scott's best movie of the 90s and maybe of a 15-year run. Yes, definitely of the 90s, I think.

Yeah, Thelma and Louise. Thelma and Louise. Can't wait. Yeah. Gina Davis Month continues. Sarandon Month continues. We're very excited to dive into it with you guys. Thank you so much for listening,

and we will see you next week with Thelma and Louise. Bye. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast, presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Post-production and music by David Bowman. This episode was researched by Jesse Winterbauer and edited by Karen Krebsaw.