Storyboard

A troubled childhood with a singular sense of determination leads lonely Nick Franklin to a job with the Postal Service. But as a big-city recruit, young Nick finds himself in the middle of a bitter dispute between the postal clerks' union and the letter carriers' union. One day, the dispute grows violent and every well-armed postal employee in Nick's station shoots it out in a blood-soaked massacre.

Nick is the only survivor. Out to protect their reputations, both unions would rather blame a lone, crazed postal employee for the slaughter...and they peg Nick as the scapegoat. Fearing for his life, and with union assassins and postal cops on his tail, Nick flees to the still-rugged West: the land where he grew up, in a town called Sand Hill.

And it's here that Nick's Uncle Jeremiah is the sole rural mailman who runs the post office out of his house. But when Nick shows up he finds a new member of the family: Aunt Jane, a young, beautiful country bride -­ who just happens to have a serious case of postal obsession.

But not all is quiet on the western frontier. In this day and age, rural postal service is being deregulated and privatized. Akin to the range wars of yesteryear, the modern West has become a battleground for turf-starved private mail services. Only it's ordinary country-folk who are being arm-twisted into picking a company, and it's traditional postal stalwarts like Uncle Jeremiah who wind up dead.

Dead? Yes, dead. Killed in the line of duty, run off the road by a rival postal Jeep. And only one man can fill Jeremiah's shoes and stand up against "AmPost," the private postal system bent on monopolizing the town. But does Nick go too far by taking on Jeremiah's marital duties as well as his professional ones? Not as far as Jane's concerned.

Between the crafty forces of privatization, and the postal manhunt that's closing in on Sand Hill, Nick can barely keep his head above water. He's got to settle things. Once and for all.

High noon at the Old Regional Postal Training Center ­ a curious cul-de-sac of building facades, each one different in design, yet each with its own unique, working mailbox. After dispatching the union mercenaries, Nick confronts the privatized postal thugs ­ accusing them of heinous capitalistic crimes and duplicity. They shoot it out, and one man is left holding a gun at Nick's head: Montgomery, a man from Nick's past, with an eye-patch and very big grudge.

But Jane shows up and shoots him. Nick is relieved, and figures Jane saved him out of love. But nothing could be further from the truth, and she turns her gun on Nick...

You see, the postal system is too slow for her. She craves the immediate gratification that only e-mail can provide. In fact, she's been working for the Information Superhighway Company and will be the local franchise holder when the fiber-optic system comes to town. She's been using the postal rivalry to discredit the very concept of surface mail. It's the dialectic of competition, she says. It destroys both parties, leaving room only for a newer, modern way of life.

Does she shoot Nick? Or can he kill her first? Will the postal cops show up in time to make a difference? And why are all the tombstones shaped like giant granite stamps? Find out in STAMP AND DELIVER, where old fashioned morality goes head-to-head with hi-tech vixens, and well-armed, psycho, postal freaks. It may be Il Postino meets Shane twisted around Repo Man sensibilities, but not since The Postman Always Rings Twice has delivering the mail been this much fun!

© 1999 Dan Mirvish. Registered with WGAWest.