Sidney Lumet Hangs Out His Shingle at ‘100 Centre Street’

Sidney Lumet sits inside a cramped mini truck on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Wearing Levi’s, a bulky sweater and headset, he is surrounded by two assistants who click buttons every time he snaps his fingers as a means of direction. They all keep a close eye on the “new new” tech monitors before them for a crucial scene.

There is something oddly touching--not to mention amazing--about watching this 75-year-old movie legend (“12 Angry Men,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Prince of the City”) going face to face with technology so new that it hasn’t even hit the open market. What is equally surprising is that the project he’s working on isn’t for movie theaters at all, but for the very medium Lumet so memorably mocked in another of his classic films, “Network.”

“100 Centre Street” is the name, and while the gritty, New York backdrop may be pure Lumet, this is a new dramatic series for A&E--its; first original--which premieres tonight. The director created the series--which is sort of “Night Court” meets “Law & Order”--for NBC, but when that network passed, he figured the whole thing was dead.

“NBC had paid me a lot of money to write a pilot,” the director explains, “but I was truly hoping they wouldn’t pick it up. I just didn’t see it as a network show that had to be restricted in any way.” Cut to a year later, when new A&E; program head Allen Sabinson decided to get into the dramatic series business: “I called sources in Hollywood to ask what’s special out there that someone didn’t make for the wrong reasons,” recalls Sabinson. “I was able to surface this out of the trunk.”

It gets better: There was no development process, only the magic words, “We don’t want a pilot, we want 13 episodes.”

“I’ve had no interference from them of any sort,” says the ecstatic director, “and there were only two words I couldn’t use”--four-letter ones. Even without those, the hourlong episodes feel raw, unpolished. And even though we are dealing with drugs and crime, there is humor (“I wouldn’t mind issuing a warrant for your barber”) and romance.

At the same time he was approached by A&E;, Lumet had been given a Sony demonstration of its new 24-frame, high-definition system, which offers video-like clarity and allows the director to edit and play back on the spot. In some ways, it harks back to Lumet’s beginnings as a director.

“It revives a 50-year-old trick I did as a child of live TV,” he laughs. “But now, because the image is simultaneously put on tape electronically, it’s capable of complete fidelity. I really feel this is the way of the future. Movies are such a cumbersome way of working, it takes so much to do the simplest thing.”

The folks behind the series are doing back-flips, since they’ve seen days (the show is done in seven, while most dramas take nine to 10) and budgets dwindle miraculously. “Sidney has done nothing short of reinventing how one-hour dramas are produced,” says Sabinson. “The 24-frame has a look all its own,” adds executive producer Debbie Elbin, “without the grain of film or the iciness of video. It’s saving us so much time, and speaking as the producer, time means money.”

Lumet, of course, brings more than a technologically open mind to this new series. All those years shepherding Oscar-caliber performances (think Paul Newman in “The Verdict,” Faye Dunaway in “Network”) have helped attract an excellent cast to the series. And they have not been disappointed.

“I had admired Sidney Lumet more than any other director,” says Alan Arkin, who plays a compassionate, liberal night-court judge in the series. “I thought ‘Running on Empty’ was a masterpiece. When I heard his name, I just jumped. Sidney is just amazing to watch. And he knows everything going on on the set. At one point, he asked that they put me on a 1/4-foot riser. By mistake, they gave me a 1/2-foot one. I decided not to say anything, to see if he’d notice. Sure enough, as we’re shooting, I hear him say, ‘Hey, what have you got him on’? He has more energy at 75 than I had at 30.”

In the series, Arkin, whom Lumet envisioned while writing the role, shares a sparring though affectionate relationship with a black female judge played by Latanya Richardson. Despite her race and gender, she is the much tougher one--the one you don’t want on your night in court.

“I can’t think of another black female character on TV, who’s not a maid, as strong as this one,” says Richardson, who has a long resume on the New York stage and appeared in the Emmy-winning “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.” “Here’s a woman who is not a victim but sits in moral judgment of others.” She says it is no cinematic gimmick that the black is conservative, the white more liberal: “Minorities have had to put on this armor as a people to move forward, but as individuals we believe in the law, even though it hasn’t worked for us much of the time. I’m proud to be bringing a new kind of woman and character to television.”

The other leads in the series are a trio of younger actors playing do-good attorneys. We’re talking politically correct territory here, with a scrappy, Pacino-esque guy (Joseph Lyle Taylor), a WASPy-rich white girl (Paula Devicq) and a sexually flamboyant Latin (Manny Perez). Needless to say, they are in acting heaven, knowing the man at the helm holds their interests first. (“Cut the hair, hair don’t act!” Lumet yells at one point for the camera to pull in to see only the actors’ faces.)

“Sidney is very specific; he can give you one word and you know exactly what to do,” says Devicq, best known as Kirsten in “Party of Five.” On this day of shooting, she has just completed what amounted to a four-page monologue, almost unheard-of in prime time. Though she has only kind words to say about her previous experience on the Fox series, clearly this is something unique. “I don’t know if I’m acting better, but I’ve learned an incredible amount in 13 weeks. There’s a completely different energy. It’s Sidney and the fact we’re in New York. It’s more real, and there is just no ego.”

Much of the show’s success may depend on Devicq’s chemistry with polar-opposite Taylor, who had performed in the award-winning Broadway show “Side Man” and wasn’t looking for life in television. “But with Sidney Lumet I’d have gone to Siberia,” says the intense young actor, who may be the breakout star here. “Sidney just captures live moments on film like no one else. He sets it up so these moments can take place. He has an overall view of what he’s trying to create.”

While Lumet claims he is not giving up on movies, the ugly truth is that he and contemporaries like Arthur Penn (who has taken over the helm at “Law & Order”) are finding friendlier waters on the small screen. “In every medium right now, there’s terrific work and terrible work going on,” he says diplomatically. “It’s true movies are very driven by focus groups, but God knows, all of America is. The truth is, I always felt I never left TV, I felt it left me.”

Now it’s up to audiences to find “100 Centre Street.” Its home is a network of older demographics, flocking mostly to its signature show, “Biography.” Will they buy into the bleaker stuff of contemporary life?

“It’s risky in that we’ve never done a dramatic series,” says A&E;’s Sabinson, “but we put our money on Sidney Lumet. We have a lot of permission with our viewers, and don’t forget, this is also the house that ‘Law & Order’ built.” (The series is rerun consistently on the network.)

So is renewal a sure thing? “There isn’t an individual at A&E; who doesn’t think there will be more episodes,” is the response.

If that renewal comes, Lumet is ready to go back to work and is already fielding calls from veteran and younger directors alike who want a chance at this new technology. Not just for the look but for the speed. This day, for example, the cast and crew had been hired for a full day, but the seasoned, well-prepared director, aided by his fancy new machines, had managed to wrap the work by lunchtime.

Leading him to announce: “Well, gang, what are we going to do the rest of the day?”

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*”100 Centre Street” premieres tonight at 9 on A&E.; The network has rated it TV-14-DL (may be unsuitable for children under 14, with special advisories for suggestive dialogue and coarse language).