Dog Day Afternoon Page #18

Sonny looks him in the eye. Suddenly he makes kissing motions

and sounds with his lips. We know what he's referring to:

he thinks Moretti's trying to f*** him over.

MORETTI:

(continuing)

Sonny, be reasonable!

SONNY:

I want to see my wife. I want you

to bring her down here.

MORETTI:

Okay, what do you give me?

SONNY:

What do you want?

MORETTI:

The girl hostages.

SONNY:

Nothin' doin'. I give you one hostage

when you bring my wife, and one for

the helicopter, one for the jet, and

the rest can come home on the jet.

MORETTI:

(kiss)

I'll see what they'll do.

Sonny smiles and pantomimes kissing.

MORETTI:

Okay, you pick out who you're gonna

give us. Where's your wife?

EXT. ROCKAWAY BEACH - DAY

There's Heidi. Her body lies exactly as before, baking in

the sun. The transistor RADIO plays... she seems to be

asleep...

RADIO:

...the leader of the pair, a Vietnam

veteran, Sonny Abramowicz, has

demanded in return for releasing one

of the hostages that police allow

his wife to visit him at the bank.

Police spokesman...

Heidi sits bolt upright, stares at the radio, which continues

to blather on. Abruptly she begins to gather up her things,

her children, in a characteristically scatter-brained and

hyperactive sort of way. Heidi is a one woman panic: she

hustles away across the broiling sand carrying the radio

wadded up in towels, and lugging a child, crying helplessly,

by one elbow, as though it were a handle, a silhouette against

the late afternoon sun, out of Fellini... meanwhile on the

SOUND TRACK we are hearing her voice. It is a breathless,

harsh childish voice that pours out the words in a torrent:

HEIDI (V.O.)

The transistor goes Sonny what? I

couldn't believe my ears, so I shut

the transistor, get outta here, who

needs this? I say Sonny didn't do

it. It's not him to rob a bank.

It's not him to hurt anybody, to

threaten anybody, to steal or do

anything wrong. 'Cause he's never

done nothin' wrong from the day I

know him.

She is stumping off into the sunset as she says these words

and we

CUT TO:

EXT. BROOKLYN STREET - DAY

Out of a subway crowd, she struggles, pulling the two kids

by the hand, a very ordinary woman in a most ordinary New

York scene...

HEIDI (V.O.)

...Only he tells me this and he tells

me that, he's with the Mafia, I say,

Sonny, where do you get the money,

you're on welfare, how can you rent

a new Eldorado, red, you don't like

the color you rent a yellow.

EXT. HEIDI'S APARTMENT HOUSE - DAY

A working class block, dirty, shops in the first floor, three

story walk-ups above... Heidi appears and runs up the stoop.

TWO COPS get out of a squad car where they've been staked

out and move up to her. They never really get in a word

edgewise. They follow her into the hall... Now as we CUT

CLOSER to her, we will SEE Heidi's mouth in SYNC with the

words...

HEIDI:

So night before last we're at Coney

Island, he's on the rides with the

kids, an' I have this habit of goin'

in glove compartments an' all, an' I

see...

INT. HALL - DAY

Heidi struggles up the stairs, dragging the kids -- the cops

following...

HEIDI:

this gun with bullets in there, an'

I go to myself, oh God, Sonny! That's

all I had to see, I didn't say

anything.

She's got her door unlocked. Below and on the stairs behind

the Cops, curious neighbors peer in...

INT. HEIDI'S APARTMENT - DAY

Chaos out of cut-rate furniture stores. Full of unwashed

glasses, kids' clutter. Throughout, the children rush around

unchecked. Neighbors enter without ceremony and listen.

The Cops stand, trying vainly to communicate... As they

enter...

HEIDI:

(continuing)

And things are adding in my head,

how crazy he's been acting, and in

with a bad crowd, an' I look at him,

he's yellin' at the kids like a

madman. So inna car I said to him,

Sonny, what you gonna do with the

gun? You gonna shoot me and dump my

body inna river or what? I was so

scared of him, I never been scared

of Sonny never. You know, his mother

says the cops was always at our house,

we was always fighting. I hit him

with the jack in the car once, but I

only missed and hit myself, you should

of seen my leg. And all he would

ever do is put on his coat and go

out. So they say it's Sonny but I

don't believe it.

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