'THE BASKET' OVERCOMES HOLLYWOOD'S MOLD FOR SUCCESS.

Byline: James Bemis Commentary

If you like David and Goliath stories, how about this one: In a year in which the Academy Awards winners proved to be the most family unfriendly in history, North By Northwest, a small West Coast independent film production company, opens its locally-made movie in an AMC theater in Spokane, Wash.

The film, produced on a $3.3 million budget, delivers an uplifting message about the brotherhood of man and contains no sex or violence. The movie was originally booked for a six-day run last August. It ran for 34 weeks.

With rave reviews and incredible word of mouth, the movie smashes local box office records, outperforming every Tinseltown blockbuster it has gone up against, including megahit ``The Sixth Sense''. Entire families - grandparents, parents and children - keep showing up for repeated viewings.

The movie later opens in two larger cities, Denver and Colorado Springs, Colo. Audiences cheer after each showing.

Based on its strong performance in these new markets, the little-film- that-could overcomes every hurdle - including financing, distribution obstacles and industry snobbism - to finally open nationwide and challenge Hollywood's stranglehold on movie production and distribution. Think it can't happen?

Think again. It just did.

The movie, ``The Basket'' (rated PG), opened Friday in 35 major markets - and is now playing at the United Artist theater in the The Oaks mall - througout the country. Starring Peter Coyote (``E.T.,'' ``Patch Adams'') and Karen Allen (``Animal House,'' ``Raiders of the Lost Ark''), ``The Basket'' is the beautifully told story of two German youngsters who lost both parents in World War I, emigrating to the small Washington town of Waterville in 1918 to live with a local pastor. Martin Conlon (Coyote) a new teacher from Boston also arrives, introducing his students to basketball, opera and the power of storytelling.

With the country at war with Germany, orphans Brigitta and Helmut bear the brunt of the local townspeople's rage against America's enemy. When the Emerys lose their oldest son to war injuries, bitter emotions are unleashed against the innocent immigrant children. To complicate matters, another of the Emery sons falls in love with the beautiful Brigitta. Only the compassion of the dead boy's mother (Allen) spares the German youngsters from further insult and indignity.

Conlon uses the diversion of basketball and a daily opera lesson to bring the townspeople together. Soon, the entire town is enthralled with the opera's storyline, and kids eagerly line up to learn the new game called basketball. With tensions running high, Conlon enters his students in a basketball game against a big-city professional team. In the climactic scene, the community unites behind the team in a completely unexpected way.

Coyote is perfectly cast as the firm but flawed schoolteacher who uses basketball and opera to teach lessons of perseverance and teamwork. Allen gives a heartfelt performance as the long-suffering Mrs. Emery, and her scenes with Coyote are little masterpieces of understated emotion. Under Rich Cowan's excellent direction, the rest of the cast, comprised mostly of local talent, is fine, with Ellen Travolta (John's mom) particularly good as Agnes Barnes, the busybody shopkeeper in whom everyone confides.

Belying its tiny budget, ``The Basket'' has the sumptuous feel of an expensive Hollywood epic. Shot in the gorgeous fields of eastern Washington, the scenery resembles great landscape paintings, with bright yellow fields starkly contrasting with massive, rolling thunder clouds or the hot blazing blue skies of summer. Colors are so resplendent it appears they sprang from the palette of a modern-day Cezanne or Andrew Wyeth.

A word about the soundtrack: When was the last time you saw a movie whose music was based on German opera? Yet ``The Basket's''lovely original score, composed by Don Caron and performed by the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, is surprisingly accessible, vital to the plot but beautiful and memorable in its own right.

There are a dozen good reasons to support ``The Basket'': it's intelligently conceived, beautifully executed, and delightfully-free-from-Hollywood's corrupting influence - perhaps the first glimpse of small green sprouts breaking through the frozen snow of our long cultural winter. Ultimately, though, the movie's success rests on the attributes it shares with all of our most beloved films - it's a great story, wonderfully told.