Elton John: Amoreena [1970]


“The most touching element in Dog Day Afternoon is Sonny’s inability to handle all of the responsibilities he has assumed. Though he is half-crazed by his situation, he is trying to do the right thing by everybody—his wife and children, the suicidal Leon, the hostages in the bank. In the sequence in which Sonny dictates his will, we can see that inside this ludicrous bungling robber there’s a complicatedly unhappy man, operating out of a sense of noblesse oblige....This picture is one of the most satisfying of all the movies starring New York City because the director, Sidney Lumet, and the screenwriter, Frank Pierson...let us move into the dark, confused areas of Sonny’s frustrations and don’t explain everything to us. They trust us to feel without being told how to feel.”
-- Pauline Kael, in When the Lights Go Down

This song from Tumbleweed Connection plays during the opening montage of New York City scenes in Dog Day Afternoon (1976) which, for my money, is one of the more memorable movie beginnings. If you haven’t seen it, rent it. Early Elton John’s not bad either. Nor, for that matter, is Pauline Kael's writing on movies of the 70s.