ON LOCATION : From ‘Alcatraz’ to ‘Attica’ : Veteran director John Frankenheimer returns to a familiar subject and medium for an HBO movie about the Attica riots

John Frankenheimer gazed across the littered yard of the old, vacated Tennessee State Prison, where he was filming an HBO movie based on the 1971 Attica prison riots. Frustrated at his crew’s inability to create enough smoke for a climactic scene in which New York state police drop tear gas from a helicopter, the director tersely shouted at an assistant director, pleading with him to get it right “this time, please!”

After a long exhale, he shook his head and reminisced about another prison picture he made 31 years ago.

“ ‘The Birdman of Alcatraz’ cost more than this picture does now, and we had the luxury of more time,” Frankenheimer intoned in a weary voice still rich in the bellowing clarity of a stage actor. “We shot that picture in 120 days, and we had the biggest star in the business (Burt Lancaster). That’s why there was no limit on budget, and that does make a difference.”

In an on-set interview that stretched through the morning, Frankenheimer, 63, anticipated questions about why one of the premier Hollywood directors of the 1960s and 1970s (“The Manchurian Candidate,” “Seven Days in May,” “The Gypsy Moths,” “The Iceman Cometh”) was working on a made-for-cable movie, and why he had chosen to take on a script about a historical event that already had been the subject of an ABC movie of the week (“Attica,” 1980).

“First of all, it’s a wonderful script,” he said, praising the work of screenwriter Ron Hutchinson. “It’s based on a personal story, a very human story. It’s a story of great courage set against this background of tension and violence and insanity.”

Hutchinson, whose writing credits include HBO’s “The Josephine Baker Story” and “Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story,” drew on the experiences of a surviving hostage, former Attica prison guard Michael Smith, who was 22 at the time and was shot four times by New York police when state officials ended the standoff by storming the prison. Ten hostages and 39 inmates were killed, nearly all of them by gunfire.

The $5.5-million production, made under the working title of “Attica: Line of Fire” and tentatively scheduled to premiere in January, features several action scenes inside the prison compound and in the prison yard. But its primary focus is on the relationship between Smith (Kyle MacLachlan) and a Muslim inmate (Samuel L. Jackson) who assumed a leadership role in the negotiations. Known in the film as Jamaal, the Muslim is a fictional character, a composite of several inmates described to Hutchinson by Smith.

Other cast members include Harry Dean Stanton as Smith’s father, a retired prison guard; Ane Heche as Sharon Smith, the hostage’s wife; Frederic Forrest as an intimidating prison guard commander; Clarence Williams III as a malevolent inmate, and Philip Bosco as Corrections Commissioner Russell Oswald.

Frankenheimer was drawn to the project because of the quality of work done by HBO Pictures in the past. “They seem to be doing very good material, the most interesting stuff on television these days,” said Frankenheimer, who got his start in TV during the 1950s. “If this was being done for a network, the budget would be half. I wouldn’t do it. The shooting schedule would be even less. The degree of realism in language and strongness would be different. It would be out of the question.”

Frankenheimer was an award-winning director during the era known as “The Golden Age of Television.” He worked on such shows as “See It Now” and “You Are There” before moving into theatrical-style productions on the acclaimed “Playhouse 90” series. In all, Frankenheimer directed more than 152 live programs for such anthology series as “Playhouse 90,” “Studio One” and “DuPont Show of the Month.” His episodes include the original “Days of Wine and Roses” with Piper Laurie and Cliff Robertson, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” with Jason Robards, “The Turn of the Screw” with Ingrid Bergman and “The Browning Version” with Sir John Gielgud.

The HBO production is Frankenheimer’s first work for television since he directed “The Rainmaker” for the pay-cable channel in 1981. His recent theatrical films include “52 Pick-Up” (1986), “The Fourth War” (1990) and “Year of the Gun” (1991).

“In a way, doing television back then was like doing something for cable now,” Frankenheimer said of the 1950s. “There was more of an emphasis on quality writing. However, that was done live, of course. At the end, it was live on tape, but that’s still very different than this kind of production. This is a feature that’s being done for television, really.”

Still, Frankenheimer acknowledged, he would love to be able to afford to hire more extras and a larger crew and to extend the shooting schedule beyond the month he had.

“If this was a major studio feature, we’d have $15 or $20 million to work with,” he noted. “But they’d also want to put Eddie Murphy and Tom Cruise in there. There’s nothing wrong with those guys. They’re both wonderful actors. But I’d prefer to have the actors I have now. This is the best cast I think I’ve ever worked with, all the way down the line. These guys are so wonderful. They’re so right for the parts.”

As for tackling a subject that previously has been made into a TV movie, Frankenheimer contends that the HBO film comes from a different point of view. “They did it from a book by Tom Wicker,” he said of “Attica” and the bestseller it drew upon, “A Time to Die.” “It was from the viewpoint of a journalist. Ours is based on the story from a man who was there, a man who was a central character in the worst prison riot in the history of our country.”

The idea for the movie first bloomed in the mind of executive producer Irwin Meyer of the Producers Entertainment Group three years ago when he read a New York Times book review of “Eyes on the Prize,” the book that coincided with a PBS documentary series about the civil rights movement. Prison guard Smith’s version of the Attica uprising was part of the book and documentary, and his story was mentioned in the review. Meyer tracked down Smith, who now works in ground-water engineering in eastern New York, and flew him to Los Angeles for a meeting.

“It’s been real interesting to watch all this take shape,” said Smith, who was hired as a production consultant and was on the set for most of the filming. “All of the actors have been real interested in getting into the characters they represent. They’ve had questions about dialogue, personalities, anything that can get them more into the character they’re playing. Kyle (MacLachlan), particularly, has been a real gentleman, a real professional. His questions have been related to attitude, mannerisms of the guards at the time, and my own personality.”

The film suggests that Smith was spared because he listened to inmates and sympathized with their plight and their cruel treatment at the prison. When the state initiated its armed attack of the prison yard, some of the hostages were stabbed or had their throats slit by inmates. Smith was spared when an inmate intervened to protect him.

“At the time, I still had that innate sense of invincibility,” Smith said. “After that, it was gone.”

Watching the production has stirred memories for him. Amazingly, however, he says it hasn’t been painful: “It’s not hard for me. I’ve always tried to look at it with a positive attitude. I let my life go on. It happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Physically, it was tough. . . . The recovery period took a long time. But I wouldn’t be the same person today if I hadn’t gone through that. It was an incredible experience. And I’ve had a positive life since. My family and my God got me through. That was all the therapy I needed.”

Looking over the prison yard, which is strewn with garbage and such time-period items as eight-track audiotapes, Smith continued: “The thing about being here is I really appreciate their efforts to get it right. They’ve taken liberties here and there, and they’ve injected some things to make it more interesting, but the relationship between the guards and the prisoners is real close to the way it was. Some of the scenes, it’s been like a deja vu thing. It’s given me chills.”