P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore’s LIFE Magazine article The Boys in the Bank, reporting on a real-life 1972 hostage situation in a Brooklyn bank branch, became an Oscar-winning screenplay by Frank Pierson.

Mining both the humor and tension of the standoff, Sidney Lumet went on location to re-create it, piloting his Serpico star Al Pacino to another iconic performance as trans-amorous bank robber Sonny Wortzik, whose rallying cry of “Attica!” became a popular catchphrase. Vincent Canby praised the film as “beautifully acted by performers who appear to have grown up on the city’s sidewalks in the heat and hopelessness of an endless midsummer.”

Dog Day Afternoon‘s humanistic portrayals were ahead of their time and struck a nerve with the public. Chris Sarandon picked up an Oscar nomination for portraying Sonny’s partner Elizabeth, creating a serious treatment of a character going through a gender change, which was truly groundbreaking for its time.