FILM/SNEAK PEEK : PRODUCERS MAKE A `KILLER'.

Byline: - Bob McCarthy

Mark Weidman bears no resemblance to the carload of guys runnin' and gunnin' in his independent production ``Killer Flick,'' but he feels their pain.

The story - about four outlaws with Hollywood dreams - fulfills the prophetic words of many a would-be filmmaker: I'd kill to make a movie. And they do with highway-to-hell abandon and their 16mm hand-held camera rolling.

Weidman was in his early 30s when he discovered his passion for filmmaking, too late to go the traditional route through film school. So he started knocking on doors with his original material but no credentials.

``I had written a few scripts and gotten some interest in them and was waiting around for people who had promised the money to make them,'' Weidman says. ``Then, I realized the only way they were going to get made was if I did it myself.''

He and brother-in-law Chip Smith have done everything they could - short of taking any lives - to get this first feature film made. They formed a production company, Smile House Productions. Weidman quit his job teaching, wrote a script, and they cobbled together $250,000 for a 13-day guerrilla shoot.

``I came up with the idea of telling the story of four filmmakers, classic antiheroes, who will literally kill to make a movie,'' said Weidman, who co-produced the full-length feature. ``Rome, Max, One Eye and Buzz - four characters cynical of Hollywood and the film industry.''

Fully aware their flick has to have the necessary ingredients to play here and overseas, the foursome loads up on the T&A, violence, car chases, explosions and romance. They're making up the script as they go, all the while listening to radio reports of their misdeeds and discussing the artistic merit of ``their'' movie.

Laemmle Theatres in West Los Angeles has been showing ``Killer Flick'' midnight Fridays and Saturdays, with crowds big enough to extend the run a couple more weeks.

``Playing `Killer Flick' at midnight showings, I'm hoping it takes on a cult status,'' Weidman says. ``You get more and more out of it each time you see it.''

He adds: ``I wanted to write a film that took the traditional disadvantages of low-budget filmmaking, and make them advantages in my film. By making a film-within-a-film, I knew I could blame them for the screw-ups in the film.''

Not that ``Killer Flick'' is paltry on the TNT, squealing tires and destruction. Weidman has Smith to thank for the flames and ammo. Unlike Weidman (who quit his day job as a teacher), Smith is a working firefighter for the city of Ontario.

``Chip is a born producer,'' Weidman says. ``It was his dream, too, to make this film and start our little company (Smile House Productions).'' Chip ran interference and kept the production running, giving Weidman the leeway to see the big picture.

``Chip's buddies came out and helped build a gas station near Barstow that we built on the property of another firefighter who heard about us and asked what he could do. Next day, the film crew came out and blew it up,'' Weidman says with a snicker.

Saved by CinemaScope

It was 1948, and America was enjoying the spoils of war: a strong economy, more leisure time and money in people's pockets. But, for whatever reason, Americans just stopped going to the movies.

Studios saw attendance drop by 30 million between '48 and '50, setting off alarm bells. If not for French scientist Henri Chretien, the free fall might have lasted who knows how long.

In the 1920s, Chretien had developed a lens that widened a projected picture to two-and-a-half times its height. The technology, which he he called Anamorphoscope, was a huge sensation when it debuted in a travelogue titled ``This is Cinerama'' around 1950. Darryl Zanuck, the boss at 20th Century Fox, saw the reaction and announced that all of his studio's films would be shot in the new format, which he renamed CinemaScope. Other studios followed, though none with Zanuck's hubris.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art remembers the ``golden age'' of CinemaScope with an exhibition of wide-screen productions starting tonight with a 1954 double feature of ``River of No Return,'' with Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum, and ``Garden of Evil,'' starring Gary Cooper, Susan Hayward and Richard Widmark. The show starts at 7:30 p.m.

``The Robe'' (Zanuck's first CinemaScope film and a huge hit) and ``Beneath the 12 Mile Reef,'' both from 1953, will be screened at 7 p.m. Saturday. Double features will be shown Fridays, Saturday and Tuesday afternoons through Aug. 11. Saturday matinees are reserved for family movies, starting this Saturday with ``Lady and the Tramp'' at 3 p.m.

Tickets cost $6 general admission, $4 for museum members, students with ID and AFI members. For tickets, call [phone] or Ticketmaster [phone].

Psychological battle

Director David Lean's 1957 Oscar-winning ``The Bridge on the River Kwai,'' shot in CinemaScope for the wide screen, will get special treatment July 18 at Glendale's Alex Theatre.

A winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, ``Bridge'' is the story of British POWs forced by their Japanese captors to build a railway through the Southeast Asian jungle. The prisoners are driven by a single-minded colonel (Alec Guinness), who is locked in a battle of wills with his captors.

Adding a touch of realism to the screening, patrons will enter a mock POW compound with Japanese ``soldiers'' in authentic uniforms as they enter the theater. World War II memorabilia will be displayed in the lobby.

Screenings are at 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets cost $7 for matinee, $8.50 for evening show, and $6 for Alex Film Society members. The theater is at 216 N. Brand Blvd. Call [phone] for information.

In praise of Winters

Shelley Winters will be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award next month at the second annual Hollywood Film Festival.

Winters began her career on Broadway before moving to the big screen in the 1940s. She is a two-time Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress, winning for ``The Diary of Anne Frank'' and ``A Patch of Blue,'' and a four-time Academy Award nominee. She currently appears in the independent feature ``Gideon's Web,'' and is also a writer and acting teacher.

The award will be presented Aug. 10 at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel. Authors Carlos de Abreu and Janice Pennington founded the Hollywood Film Festival to introduce global talent to Hollywood's movers and shakers.

Call [phone] or visit the Web site - http://hollywoodfilmfestival.com - for information.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Producer Mark Weidman couldn't get a major studio interested in his moviemaking talents, so he formed his own company and made his own film.

(2) One Eye, left, Max, Rome and Buzz, the filmmakers in ``Killer Flick,'' would literally kill to make a movie- and they do.