If it ever stops raining I plan to take a crack at this project I’ve wanted for years to do. These two shots are screen grabs from the opening minutes of “Dog Day Afternoon”, the 1975 film starring Al Pacino as Sonny Wortzik (whose real name was John Stanley Wojtowicz). These stills from the movie show Manhattan as the backdrop behind Calvary Cemetery in Queens. I want to go to the big yard to see if I can find the exact spots from which these were made. I’ll report back.
Calvary Cemetery, from Opening Sequence of “Dog Day Afternoon”
Calvary Cemetery, from Opening Sequence of “Dog Day Afternoon”
I can not tell from these images if they were taken from the cemetery itself or from another location (aerial or from the Kosciuszko Bridge).
The second picture is an example of why I hate movies. Inattention to details. The second shot shows the Twin Towers, fully built, in 1974 or 1975 (the year the film was released). The film is a dramatization of actual events that occurred in 1972, at which time the Towers were not yet complete. Why show fully built Twin Towers in a film set in 1972? Why why why? Ah, who cares.
“Dog Day Afternoon” is the first movie I ever saw. It was in Laos, where we had a movie projector and a screen. That in itself was considered rather extravagant at the time. One of the perks of being U.S. military abroad was that our dad got copies of first-run American movies at the same time as the movies opened in U.S. theaters. I saw it as a child and once or twice in bowdlerized television versions. It was not until I saw this film again in college that I understood a large part of its meaning. The bisexuality of the lead character just somehow passed me by as a child.
I still love this film, though it runs a little long at times with too many stories. The opening sequence of street scenes from New York City in the mid-1970s (which includes these two Calvary shots) is itself worth the price of rental.
Calvary is not much represented in feature films, and these two shots from “Dog Day” are not mentioned in any movie reference materials that I know of. Besides The Godfather, the only other appearance I know of showing Calvary in feature films is when it appears as meaningless background scenery in the awful Bad Company. I feel like Calvary has to have appeared in other studio-released films, but maybe not: the cemetery has strict rules which forbid the filming of video on their grounds.
Interesting and clever intuition wanting to go there to recapture those pictures, beware! It is most definitely a ritual ground for the Illuminati and their Hollywood producers friends.
Go accompanied, and be safe.
You’re on a roll lately, in terms of throwing up items that hit me.
Appreciate the screengrabs. I too love this film and look forward to the results of your quest. I’m happy to accompany you if you’re spooked by Bulldogman37’s comments (though I know you won’t be).
now that i look at these again, i am pretty certain i know almost precisely where the pictures from Dog Day were taken — over at the highest part of the cemetery, and in fact i probably already have photos which come close to re-creating the first one, though i don’t know about the second. we’ll find out. jack, i think i have a date already, but i’ll let you know if it doesn’t work out. there’s another shot by Andreas Feininger that seems to have been made from about this same vantage point, but in the 1940s. maybe i’ll try and re-create that one, too.