Trans Movie: Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

This is a review of Dog Dag Afternoon from a trans perspective.

The movie stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, James Broderick and Charles Durning. (wiki).

Although Al Pacino is the designated star, and in fact chose the rest of the cast, I think the unrecognized star is John Cazale - a theater actor who was the love of Meryl Streep's life, and who played Frodo in the Godfather movies along with Pacino. Cazale died young, leaving his wife Streep a widow.

This is a twisted-lovers movie. Pacino's character loves someone in the NY jail system because they attempted suicide. The lover needs money for an operation. So Pacino robs a bank, so the lover can pay for a sex change, but things go terribly awry.

As it happens, Pacino's love is trans, male-to-female. The transness is not the lynchpin of the movie. I leave it to you as to whether it's sensational or titillating. Pacino's wife also takes a part in the movie.

This is all based on a true story told in Life magazine. In real life, the lover was not in jail, but needed money for the operation and so the primary character robbed a bank.

It's an interesting movie. Having made a sensational hook by invoking Trans, it abandons that topic and becomes a cops-and-robbers bank heist story.