Attica (1980)

Not knowing much more about the Attica Prison Riots than hearing about it through "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Saturday Night Fever", but familiar enough that it was a dark period of history, I chose to start my study of the riots by watching this film. Regardless of whether that method of research was the smartest, I watched "Attica" with an open mind and the realization that TV movies tend to overdramatize and take liberties with historical-based subjects. However, I found little of this in "Attica". The movie seems to take a bold, straight-forward look at the events without muddying it with personal relationships, unnecessary side stories or drawn-out dialogue. There is a sympathy, a compassion and an understanding of both sides of the story for both the prisoners and the negotiators. It swiftly moves from one important scene to the next, addressing the pivotal points that occurred throughout those four days, climaxing on the unavoidably prolonged massacre at the film's conclusion. As a whole, I thought this was a well made, well directed, and a well acted movie, and hope that it has been faithful to the facts.

I was an extra in the movie -- the blond guard who was taken hostage.To answer a previous question, the "nude" scene was not at the end of the movie and was shot as we hostages were driven outside (most of us were nude, but not all) into the yard where about 1,000 other extras were supposed to be trying to kill us while other inmates protected us. We called it the gauntlet when we were filming it. It was cold and muddy and we had to shoot it several times. They gave us bed sheets to wrap up in between takes -- but it was more for warmth than modesty as after the first take, we were pretty muddy head to toe from being pushed around a lot in the mud by 100s of people -- there were about 35 of us playing hostages. We hostages were paid three or four times the regular daily pay for that day and I remember a lot of the movie's big shots had their wives and/or girl friends on the set that day, too.The scene was included in the European release of the movie. I have copies of both.The end was more about the state police just shooting at the inmates sort of randomly and depicting the fact that since many of the police were shooting shotguns, many of the dead and wounded hostages were shot by the police, not inmates.It was hard work... long, long days inside a hospital for the criminally insane... and long stretches of nothing at all to do, as well... lots of hurry up and wait.The movie won a few big awards -- Chomski had just finished Holocaust previous to this movie and was sort of riding that success -- ABC Circle films, I believe.

Just a little note, my brother in law was the foreman on the jury, I still remember seeing his face on T.V. & his mother getting all upset, thinking the inmates or families would come after him. He never did have any problems but one of the other jurors & my brother in law became best friends and are still friends to this day.Strange how bad things can sometimes lead to strange things, like friendship, marriage among others. I now live within a dozen miles from the prison, I have driven past the prison on many occasion, thinking what a scary place it is and how tough you need to be to survive a stint inside the stone walls. I drove my son past one day, explaining about how his uncle was on the jury. I think it frightened him a little bit. I told him to behave or he could end up on the inside! I remember watching the guards in the towers watching me, holding what looked to be M-16 automatic weapons. That was enough to make me turn around and head out of the parking lot and not look back!!

I am curious if they included the nude scene at the end where we were all stripped down and beaten by the guards as we were filed back into the building. It was pretty realistic. It was filmed at the Lima state hospital for the criminally insane which was open for business at the time and we would converse with the inmates. I remember wearing a short haired wig to not cut my long hair.as they did not allow long hair in Attica in the 60's/70's. I wanted to be in it as I had followed the injustice during that time and hitched from Columbus and back to make 5 bucks an hour for really hard work as an extra standing around in the heat with a bunch of other folks. There was actually almost a riot when the director of the institution came out and made remarks about people bringing in drugs,some pot smoking was happening and sharp instruments and that he would bring the highway patrol in to frisk and arrest all involved..hell there was hundreds of us and it was late in the afternoon with no lunch yet so the reply was quite radical towards the man...Q guy next to me quipped they are gonna start a real riot and film it. fortunately the main director got the mike and cooled us down and we in turn threw little things like safety pins and other harmless items into a box to act like we were complying and all was well and our extra work finished up that day and no one was accosted on the way out of the secure environment we had definitely mocked. Pat Adkins Aheville, NC