While director Ang Lee was generating the headlines during 3 1/2 months of filming "Ride With the Devil" in Missouri and Kansas, another movie with a smaller budget and a lower profile also was being filmed nearby. But that movie, "Monday After the Miracle," likely will reach the larger audience. The CBS-produced period piece about the adult Helen Keller and her longtime teacher Annie Sullivan makes its debut at 8 p.m. Sunday on Channel 5. Even if "Ride With the Devil" should someday ride into that sparsely populated $ 100 million range - roughly 15 million tickets sold - it'll be no match for the CBS Sunday movie, which is averaging just over 18 million viewers this season. Roma Downey, star of "Touched by an Angel," plays Annie; Moira Kelly of the new CBS romantic comedy "To Have and to Hold" is Helen; and Bill Campbell plays the earnest professor who comes between them when he falls for Annie. Using such venues as St. Mary College in Leavenworth and the former Topeka State Hospital, producer Vanessa Greene re-created the genteel atmosphere of the East Coast circa 1900. Greene, who also produced last year's Western drama "Stolen Women, Captured Hearts" for CBS, worked with the Kansas Film Commission and Kansas City's Wendy Gray to scout locations. Greene and local agents Jack Wright and Heather Laird cast 18 area actors to fill out the supporting cast. Peggy Friesen, T. Max Graham, Jennifer Mays, Brian Paulette, Glenn Q. Pierce, Michael Linsley Rapport, Nick Miller-Schlyer, David Rees Snell, Dean Vivian and 9-year-old Kyla Pratt (who played Helen as a young girl) were among those featured. Several local cast members hit the period-piece perfecta, getting roles in "Monday" and "Ride," including Graham, Kyla and University of Kansas football player Pat Brown. Pierce even plays a minister in both movies. "People ask me, 'How does that happen? ' " Laird said. "And I tell them it happened because the directors of both films saw these people and liked them for the same reasons." Of the 125 or so cast and crew members working on "Monday After the Miracle" at the shooting's peak, Greene estimated half were local. Even though the pool was smaller - many were committed to Lee's film at the time - Greene said she had talented help the entire 12 weeks of production. "We felt very lucky," Greene said. "I did not have one poor performance from a local actor. They were really great." From the beginning Greene had wanted to film "Monday After the Miracle" in Kansas. "I enjoyed the state, and I enjoyed working there with the film commission," she said. "It also has a very particular look that works, especially with period pieces. St. Mary College is extraordinary. The film opens there, and it's quite, quite beautiful. But the house (where Helen and Annie live) is beautiful in Eudora. And the New York apartments we built in the mental institution in Topeka are fabulous! You'd never know they were built there." Graham appears in the movie's opening minutes as a professor at Radcliffe College. Those scenes were shot at Topeka High School, as were later scenes of a vaudeville theater. "I saw a screening of it, and the school looks great," Graham said. "They just re-dressed part of the stage and part of the audience. Even did some computer-generated stuff." In a period piece? "Yes! There's another scene where Roma and Moira are in a gazebo and there's a little bird that lands on the railing on the gazebo next to Helen. It's a really wonderful little bird, and it's computer-generated." To reach Aaron Barnhart, television writer for The Star, call 234-4790 or send e-mail to tvbarn@kansascity.com