A look inside Hollywood and the movies : ORION’S ‘FIELD’ OF DREAMS : First Film Out of the Deep Freeze and They’re Pushing Hard for a Pfeiffer Oscar

Will an Oscar grow from the long-lain-fallow “Love Field?”

That’s Orion’s hope, anyway.

Having just emerged from bankruptcy court proceedings, the once-revered independent film production company will release “Love Field” as the first of 10 finished features it has held in limbo since filing for Chapter 11 protection nearly a year ago.

One reason--and a big one--is that the filmmakers and others at Orion believe “Love Field” boasts an Academy Award-caliber performance by Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays a ditzy Texas beautician obsessed with Jack and Jackie Kennedy.

Something of a road movie, something of a romance--although some say “too quirky” a film to be categorized into any one genre--”Love Field” takes off dramatically when Pfeiffer leaves her very non-J.F.K.-like husband (Brian Kerwin) to travel to Washington for the President’s funeral following his assassination. Along the way, she becomes involved with a black man and his daughter (Dennis Haysbert, Stephanie McFadden) and undergoes a transformation.

“It’s a wonderful woman’s journey--a woman’s longing for something more,” said Midge Sanford, one of the film’s producers, who admits to being frustrated waiting out Orion’s fate. “It wasn’t just my hope Orion would release ‘Love Field’ first, it was my expectation and I think that because of Michelle’s performance. We always thought she had a chance for a nomination.”

Orion plans one-week-only stands in New York and Los Angeles, tentatively scheduled for the second or third week of December. The limited run would qualify the picture for Academy Award consideration.

Sanford acknowledged difficulty in reconstructing the movie’s history, considering it’s been in the can since early 1991. This will be the third time a release date has been announced. “I’d say it’s been a very long road to this December,” she said.

What Sanford finds ironic is how short the actual filmmaking process was from the time she and producing partner Sarah Pillsbury acquired the property back in April, 1989, to completion of principal photography a little more than a year later (although the male was recast twice, once with Eriq LaSalle when Denzel Washington left the project and again with Haysbert). The Sanford/Pillsbury productions “River’s Edge” and “Eight Men Out” each took three years.

At one point, the producing duo investigated the possibility of having “Love Field” come out via another distributor. But this was denied by the bankruptcy court on grounds that the 10 unreleased Orion movies were assets of the company and selling off any one title would devalue the company’s overall worth.

The next hurdle is to get academy members to see the film in hopes they might view Pfeiffer’s star turn as Oscar-worthy. The field is considered wide open this year because of the dearth of strong lead actress performances. Orion is considering sending academy members a videocassette copy of the film, an increasingly common practice for less mainstream pictures.

Pfeiffer will have a separate Oscar campaign built around her role as Catwoman in “Batman Returns,” hardly the serious or noble performance academy members vote for. Studios are contractually obligated to launch academy campaigns for stars of Pfeiffer’s caliber.