A LABOR OF LOVE: CAPE GETS LOOK AT 'WINDING ROADS'

If anything ever were a labor of love, "Winding Roads" is.

The movie is a story about the decisions people make searching for love, but the making and distribution of the movie is itself a love story.

Director Ted Melfi, a Southwest Missouri State University graduate, and his wife, actress Kimberly Quinn, wrote the screenplay after asking themselves how people decide whom to spend the rest of their lives with.

"You never see movies that answer that question," Melfi says, sitting in the Cape West Cine theater lobby Friday.

Instead of trying to crack the Hollywood studio system with their idea, Melfi financed and filmed the independent movie in Springfield, Mo. "'Forrest Gump' was in the system for nine years," he said. "You have to make your own path in this world."

Melfi's film is as independent as films get. This week, he and Quinn drove their compact car to hand-deliver the two existing prints of the movie to theaters in Springfield and Cape Girardeau -- the only places in the world the movie currently can be seen. "Winding Roads" opened Friday at Cape West Cine.

He had difficulty finding men who wanted to be in a movie driven by its female characters. Scott Bakula was one actor who backed out of a role.

"But by no means is it what I would call a chick flick," Melfi said. "It is a very serious dramatic movie."

Quinn appears in the R-rated film along with Rachel Hunter and Katrina Bronson. Hunter is perhaps better known as a model and as the ex-wife of rocker Rod Stewart. Bronson is the daughter of actor Charles Bronson.

The male leads are Mike Marsters, who plays Spike on the TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"; Michael Weatherly, who will appear in James Cameron's upcoming TV series "Dark Angel"; and Carlos Gomez, who was in the movies "The Peacemaker" and "The Negotiator."

Melfi shot the movie in Springfield because of his Missouri roots. Though born in Brooklyn, he and his family moved to the small Missouri town of Conway when he was a teen-ager. He graduated from Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield in 1993 with a twin major in psychology and architecture. After giving a master's degree in psychology a try, he drove to Los Angeles in 1996 with $600 and a yen to become a writer.

Melfi has been working on "Winding Roads" every day for the past two years and is distributing the movie himself. "We went around the gatekeepers," he said. In the movie business, this approach is called "a four-wall," so named because independent filmmakers used to play their films on walls and charge admission.

Wehrenberg Theaters executive Don Whitford saw a copy of the film and agreed to put it in the chain's theaters, Melfi said. The movie poster is in each one of Wehrenberg's St. Louis theaters.

The film received part of its financial backing from Springfield businesswoman Gloria Calhoun. "In Springfield we had people bringing guacamole for the crew," Melfi said.

The Missouri Film Commission was helpful, too, he said, providing information on locations and tax incentives. The producers spent about $400,000 making the film in Missouri.

"Winding Roads" is scheduled to open in St. Louis next, a major market which Melfi admits will be the litmus test of whether the film has an audience. Plans are to take it to Chicago and other Midwestern cities before landing in New York City and Los Angeles.

Melfi and Quinn's relationship has made the struggle to make "Winding Roads" both worthwhile and possible, he said.

"She is the only thing in my life that is completely safe, completely dependable, completely free, and has no judgments and no expectations," he says.

Their decision to marry inspired the film and its characters' realization that "love is the only thing worthwhile," Melfi says.