The Dog

1

MAN:
If anybody gets up,

they're dead.

Anybody moves, they're dead.

Anybody makes a sound

before I leave this movie,

they're f***ing dead.

My name is John S. Wojtowicz.

You can call me The Dog

because that's my nickname.

Hi. I'm Jeanne Parr,

and this is John Wojtowicz.

Right now, he's in jail.

It was 5 1/2 years ago

when he attempted

to rob a Brooklyn bank

to get money

for his lover's

sex change operation.

They made a movie about John.

It's called "Dog Day Afternoon,"

and Al Pacino

played the part of John.

This is John's lover Liz Eden,

who wanted

that sex change operation.

Well, she got it, and today

she's living happily as a woman.

John is still in jail,

and we'll reveal

for the first time in

my exclusive interview with him,

his side of this very dramatic

love story.

So stay with us. We're live.

That's the abbreviated version.

OK. The reason I call myself

a pervert

is that I'm sexually oriented.

It's very easy because you

got to look at it this way.

Most people drink.

Most people smoke.

A lot of people do drugs,

and they have sex.

So they have all

these outlets, OK?

I don't smoke. I don't drink.

I don't do drugs.

I don't gamble.

So I'm an angel... ha ha!...

but I got horns,

OK, and the trouble is,

when you got horns,

you only can do one thing, OK.

And that's f***.

I consider myself a romantic.

There's sex, and there's love.

I'm a lover.

When I met Ernie

for the first time,

it was love at first sight,

and because I loved him,

on August 22, 1972,

I had to do something.

ANNOUNCER:
All in all,

August 22, 1972,

was a summer day just like

any other summer day...

hot, humid, with everyone

trying to get a bit of relief

from the oppressive

heat and humidity,

and then it happened.

At 2:
58 P.M. that afternoon,

two men entered a bank

in Brooklyn

and began what turned out to be

the most sensational,

most bizarre,

most unbelievable bank robbery

in the history of crime,

and before they were through,

what should have been

an ordinary bank robbery

turned into a 3-ring circus.

[People shouting]

[Sirens]

WOJTOWICZ:
Nobody would ever did

what I did.

Nobody would ever rob a bank

to cutoff a guy's dick to give

him a sex change operation.

That's why they made

a movie about it.

You know something, people?

You're gonna be remembered

the rest of your

lives for the day

you got held up and kidnapped.

We made history here.

We did it.

ANNOUNCER:
AI Pacino.

A true story.

WOJTOWICZ:
OK.

What you got to understand

is that in my lifetime,

I have had 4 wives.

I also have 23 girlfriends

because, remember,

I'm a pervert.

They all know each other

because I'm like Prudential.

I'm the rock, OK,

and I give a piece of myself

to everybody,

and you go,

"How can you do that?"

I says, because, idiot...

it's very simple...

you can love

more than one person.

HARRY REASONER:
One of

the strangest hijack attempts

to date began when two gunmen

held up a bank

in Brooklyn, New York.

The gunmen got $29,000,

but before they could leave,

police moved in,

and the bank robbers

seized 8 hostages.

BURKE:
With his partner inside

pointing a shotgun

at 8 employees, the other robber

spent much of his time

pacing outside the bank,

either negotiating with police

or screaming at them

to back off.

Police, in turn,

tried to keep the pressure down

by ordering the hundreds

of spectators to move.

All right, fellas.

You got to move back.

BURKE:
The more visible

bank robber

is 27-year old John Wojtowicz,

an out-of-work

New York City resident

and an admitted homosexual

who left his wife

and two children 3 years ago.

WOMAN:
That day,

I was with my girlfriend

and my two kids

on the beach in Rockaway.

It was a hot, hot day... oh, God...

and I'm listening to the radio,

and I hear,

"an admitted homosexual

has just robbed a bank

in Brooklyn, Avenue P,"

and they said his name

and everything,

and I'm listening to it.

I'm listening to it

at the beach.

I listened to it on the train.

I went home

and watched it on TV.

I'm listening and listening.

I didn't hear Wojtowicz.

I heard John something.

So I says to my girlfriend,

"That sounds like my name,

doesn't it?"

She starts laughing.

We went in the back yard.

We had a barbeque, not realizing

it's Johnny all the time.

[Camera flash pops]

WOMAN:

[Hal David and John Cacavas "We May

Never Pass This Way Again" playing]

WOJTOWICZ:
After I graduated

high school,

I met my female wife

called Carmen Ann. Bifulco.

MAN:
We may never pass

this way again...

She worked for Chase Manhattan,

as I did.

So we're your friends

at Chase Manhattan.

I was a teller, and it's what

I call love at first sight.

MAN:
If we never chance

to meet again...

BIFULCO:
He called me up

to go on a date.

He picked me up with

two other girls, and he says,

"One of you is going to be

my lucky bride in the future."

I thought the guy

was crazy already.

WOJTOWICZ:
Then we started

talking to each other

and dating, and then,

boom, I got drafted.

I'm a Goldwater Republican,

which means I'm conservative,

which means I'm also

a warmonger,

So I was willing to go

to the war and fight in the war.

[Crowd cheering]

BARRY GOLDWATER:
I would

remind you that extremism

in the defense of liberty

is no vice.

[Crowd cheering]

WOJTOWICZ:
When then I went

to basic training,

that's when I had my first

gay experience.

I met a hillbilly

by the name of Wilbur.

One night, I was dreaming

that I was getting a blow job,

and instead,

it was the real thing,

and Wilbur was blowing me,

and just before I came,

I woke up, and I go,

"What are you doing?"

and he said,

"Well, doesn't it feel good?"

and I go, "Yeah. It feels good."

He said, "Well?"

I said, "Well, keep on going,"

and then we kept having

this relationship

because he blew great.

He was like a summer breeze.

Ha ha!

I went to Vietnam

in October of 1966.

I first went to Saigon,

and a few months later,

they shipped me up to Da Nang,

OK, up by the DMZ,

and that's where

we got into action...

and then in February of 1967,

there was the first

rocket attack

on the Da Nang Air Force Base,

and 90% of my fellow soldiers

were killed.

So what happened is,

I went from being a Goldwater

conservative in 1964

to a McCarthy peacenik in 1968

because if we're not

gonna win the war,

why should all these young kids

get killed and die for nothing?

We lost 50,000 people over there

because they wouldn't

let us win it.

So if you're not

going to win it,

let's get out and end it.

I married Carmen

in 1967 in October.

We wanted to get married

before I went to Vietnam,

but my in-laws said no

because they were hoping

I didn't make it back.

Soto disappoint my in-laws,

I lived through the Vietnam War

and came back and married her.

BIFULCO:
My father didn't

want me to get married at all.

My relatives despised him,

but I got married.

These are the pictures

from my wedding...

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