“It was just a given,” said Patricia Light, who grew up in Dannemora and whose home is just a short walk downhill from the prison. “It was quite an ordeal for us, and it was scary because we had no idea where they were.”

Sure enough, idle chatter over the Hollywood treatment has turned into something real. It is not necessarily the big-budget blockbuster that some might have envisioned, but a made-for-TV movie, to be broadcast on Sunday on the Lifetime network. It seems likely to draw an audience of residents here eager to watch — some quite skeptically — a production based on their community’s true story.

The movie, “New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell,” centers on Ms. Mitchell, who worked in the prison tailor shop. Officials said she smuggled in hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools to help the prisoners, Richard Matt and David Sweat, forge a way out. But she failed to show up as planned with a getaway car, forcing the men to scuttle plans to flee far from the area and instead head into the region’s thick woods.

Mr. Matt was fatally shot by a United States Border Patrol agent after he refused to drop a shotgun, and two days later, Mr. Sweat was shot and captured near the Canadian border. Ms. Mitchell, who pleaded guilty to aiding in the escape, was sentenced to up to seven years in prison, describing her actions as “by far the worst mistake I have made in my life.”