70s Al Pacino Is My Girlfriend

AL PACINO in N.Y.P.D., S02E05: Deadly Circle Of Violence [X,X]

Lion:  Hey Max, you heard the story of the scarecrow?

Max: No.

Lion: You think crows are scared of a scarecrow?

Max: Yeah, I think they’re scared. Yeah why?

Lion: No, crows are not scared, believe me.

Max: The god damn crows are scared.

Lion: No, crows are laughin’.

Max: Nah, that’s bullshit…

Lion: That’s right, the crows are laughin’. Look, the farmer puts out a scarecrow, right, with a funny hat on it, got a funny face. The crows fly by, they see that, it strikes ‘em funny, makes ‘em laugh.

Max: The god damn crows are laughin’?

Lion: That’s right, they’re laughin’ their asses off. And then they say, “Well, that ol’ farmer Jo down there, he’s a pretty good guy. He made us laugh, so we won’t bother him any more”.

"Tellingly, Pacino gives his character a recurring facial tick: a slight, twitchy blink. This is used to interesting effect in the film's trailer, at the end of which the robbers are shown getting into the police car with the hostages. 'We did it,' Sonny says, confident that he and Sal have been successful in their escape.

A split second afterwards, there is a cut to a frontal angle of Pacino, who blinks, with his usual twitch. ...Crucially, the shot with Pacino blinking does not appear at this moment in the actual film...it has been inserted at this point in the trailer for a reason. The facial tick is there to contradict Sonny's claim that they have succeeded.

'We did it,' he says - 'No, he didn't,' the blink informs the audience."

Homosexuality in "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975): Televisual Surfaces and a "Natural" Man by Christopher R. Brown

Film Criticism, Fall, 2012, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Fall, 2012), pp. 35-54

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

AL PACINO in N.Y.P.D., S02E05: Deadly Circle Of Violence [X,X]