?What I find helpful, when constructing a character, is to think through a bit of what the character?s background is, and in that way let the character 
begin to tell me, as the writer, what he or she wants to do.?
-? Frank Pierson, on writing the screenplay for Dog Day Afternoon (from Oscar-Winning Screenwriters on Screenwriting by Joel Engel)
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There are a few reasons Dog Day Afternoon ? one of my Top 50 Films and Top 50 Screenplays of all time ? holds up as well today as it did when first released in 1975.
The performances developed by an ensemble of New York actors ? Al Pacino, Chris Sarandon, John Cazale, Carol Kane, Charles Durning ? were authentic and true to character. The director, Sidney Lumet, was smart and respectful enough to allowed the script and the performances to speak for themselves, and to allow the actors substantial rehearsal time.
And screenwriter Frank Pierson decided from the onset, that he would not build the screenplay around the failed bank robbery on which the film was based, but rather around ?the character who tried to pull it off and the other people in his world.?
Pierson said he intended for the viewer to continue to learn more about the main character, Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino), and those around him as the story unfolded ? ?like peeling back onion layers?.
Thus, the focus of the screenplay shifted from plot to the nature of Sonny, his relationship with his ?wife? Leon Shermer (Chris Sarandon), as well as Sonny?s relationship with the hostages in the bank ? how they gradually lose their fear of him and start to identify with him during his escalating battle with the police. Though in the end, when Sonny and his accomplice, Sal (John Cazale) arrive at the airport and the police make their move, everyone deserts him and Sonny finds himself completely alone.
With the journey of the main character and the concept of ?peeling the layers? of his characters in mind, Pierson sought to knuckle out the chronology of events ? some real, some imagined, which did not necessarily pertain to the reality of the true story.
It is possible that had Pierson remained true to ?real life events? and had centered the characters around them ? as oppose to vise versa, that I might not be writing this tribute today. Nevertheless, the writer gives much of the script?s credit to director, Sidney Lumet, stating that the script benefited tremendously from having Lumet at the helm, ?because Sidney likes to have a lot of rehearsal before shooting, almost as though staging a play.?
Pierson described Lumet as one of the rare movie directors who knew ?how to really userehearsal time?. Not merely to work out staging, but as an opportunity for improvisation, to explore character.
According to Pierson, the collaboration with Lumet went as follows: Lumet had the actors improvise off the script all the way through rehearsals, Pierson went off to another job, returned after a week or so to see what insights they had stumbled upon, and added orsubtracted the necessary material.
It carried on more or less like so until one day when in Hollywood, Pierson received a call from a panic-stricken Lumet: ?Get on a plane and come to New York!? 
Pierson arrived on set, mentally-prepared for major dialogue or scene changes. But that not the case. Things were a lot worse. Al Pacino was ready to quit.
He couldn?t bring himself to play Sonny the way Pierson had written him.
The project had started off with the studio?s ? Warner Brother?s ? working title of ?Boys in the Bank?, based on the Life Magazine article, The Boys in the Bank, about the robbery of the Chase Manhattan Bank that took place in Brooklyn on August 22, 1972.
John Wojtowicz (who in the article is described to have ?the broken-faced good looks of an Al Pacino or a Dustin Hoffman?), along with accomplices, Salvatore Naturile and Robert Westenberg, had attempted to rob the bank and had held seven employees hostage for 14 hours.
Wojtowicz had had a failed first marriage to Carmen Bifulco, a typist at Chase Manhattan Bank. His second was less conventional. Wojtowicz had been married to Ernest Aron. However, their marriage ended 4 months later when Aron left him in pursuit of a sex-change operation.
John Wojtowicz/Al Pacino
According to the article by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore, ?These must have been the worst weeks in John Wojtowicz?s life. The quiet normality of his first marriage was far behind him. The precarious second life he?d built around his liaison with Ernest Aron was a shambles. Deserted, low on cash, convinced that certain ?lumps? in his intestines were growing into a terminal cancer, Wo- jtowicz groped for one master stroke which would provide for his wife and kids, regain the esteem of Ernest Aron, and enable him to spend whatever time he had left living, as he had always wanted to live, ?high on the hog.?
Back to Al Pacino who was ready to quit the movie.
Pierson confesses that original drafts of Dog Day Afternoon focussed more on the hilarious nature of Leon, Chris Sarandon?s character and Al Pacino?s character?s ?wife? in the movie. Leon in real life was, according to Pierson, ?one of those drag queens who can?t offer you a glass of water without putting such an obscene sexual spin on it that it makes you fall down laughing.?
It was this humor and overt sexuality that Pierson had sprinkled into his script. It was this humor that Pacino was particular uncomfortable with. Also, there was a scene inside the bank where Sonny kisses Leon and the two share a few sexual jokes about their relationship.
Pacino?s terms were clear and non-negotiable.
?The kiss is out, and there can?t be any jokes about their relationship. And furthermore, I won?t appear in the same frame with Leon.?
In other words, Pierson had to completely re-think his story and not to mention, his script. And as far as Sonny and Leon went, the only time they could share a scene was over the telephone.
It was about at this time when Pierson and Lumet decided it was time to send the script to Pacino?s adversary, Dustin Hoffman. At which point, Pacino took Pierson aside and asked him, ?How often in the course of a serious relationship? where the two people who?ve discovered they can?t go on together anymore and are going to have to say good-bye forever ? how often does sex come into it?? Pierson?s reply: ?Never?.
Pacino continued. Why couldn?t they leave the sex jokes out and treat it ?as a story about two people who love each other and can?t find a way to live with each other??
To which Pierson responded, ?Damn! Why in the hell didn?t you say that three months ago???
Once Pierson realized that Pacino was right, he set out to dismantle the screenplay, ?take everything out and stitch it back together again.? What seemed initially like a mammoth rewrite, took a mere 4 hours.
The hardest part came however, when it was time for Pierson to illustrate Sonny and Leon?s relationship through two phone calls.
This is how he did it.
First, Pierson, wrote two long monologues ? one for Sonny, one for Leon. Then he took the monologues to rehearsal where Lumet dismissed everyone but Pacino and Sarandon. As the two actors began improvising off their monologues, Pierson started to tape them. Nearly an hour later, the rehearsal was over and Pierson and Lumet got 12 people to transcribe it. And from the transcribe, Pierson pieced together a conversation between two ill-fated lovers which was then halved to form two telephone conversations.
Pierson describes this moment as the point in screenwriting where everyone is more or less satisfied, until you discover something else that was there all along, which makes you sit up and say, ?Wait a second, there?s more here?.
Pierson stated that the original script would have been funnier, much more camp, ?like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?, and probably a commercial success. Though he also admits, ?It would not have had the timelessness that it does now, because it would?ve been more shallow and it would probably be considered homophobic.?
Dog Day Afternoon received overwhelmingly positive reviews upon its first release. Film critic, Christopher Null, has said that the film ?captures perfectly the zeitgeist of the early 1970s, a time when optimism was scraping rock bottom.?
Frank Pierson would go on to receive an Oscar for his screenplay. But was always quick to acknowledge the role that his director and lead actor played in the development of the script.
?I?m grateful to both Sidney and Al,? he said.?We had that time to rehearse, which gave Sidney and Al and everybody time to come to grips with what they saw taking form.?
?And because of that, we had the opportunity to fix a weakness in the script ? a weakness that would have shown when it was projected forty feet high.?
?Frank Pierson, received an Academy Award nomination for his first screenplay, the western lampoon ?Cat Ballou,? another Oscar nod for his script of ?Cool Hand Luke? and the Oscar for? ?Dog Day Afternoon.? Most recently he worked as consulting producer and writer for TV series ?Mad Men? and ?The Good Wife.?? His career as Screenwriter spanned 5 decades. He also served as president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. Frank Pierson died July?22 at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 87.
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Source: http://moderndaystoryteller.com/?p=4598
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