283. 'Dog Day Afternoon' (1975) Part 2: The Real Story

In the second of my two-parter on Dog Day Afternoon, we get out of the fictional universe of the film and explore the real people behind the characters shown onscreen.

John Wojtowicz' life proved truly stranger and more depressingly pedestrian than fiction. So much so that he preferred the fictional version of himself and performed that role for the rest of his life after being released from prison in 1978 until his death in 2006.

The LIFE Magazine article that caught the attention of Pacino's producer and manager.

A very good jailhouse interview with John Wojtowicz from the Village Voice's Cliff Jahr.

The excellent documentary Based on a True Story: Dog Day Afternoon by the Dutch filmmaker Walter Stokman.

The documentary that covers more of the end of John's life, The Dog.

Pierre Huyghe's installation video art piece Third Memory, an indispensable part of understanding memory, film, and the roles we perform.

I didn't get to this in the podcast but here's an unpublished essay John wrote to the NY Times reviewing the film.

1978 Washington Post profile of John, freshly out of prison.