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By Toure Muhammad

After being hired to write several screenplays that were never produced, Screenwriter Mark Harris decided to make his own. The result is his directing debut of "Why Men Cheat" which will be released straight to video next month.

The film stars stage veteran Mel Roberson as a straying husband seeking a solution to his chronic infidelity. The co-stars are Chicago comedians Vanessa Fraction ("Barbershop 2"), BLT ("The Evil One"), and Ray Love. Harris shot the film in six days last May in his South Side Englewood neighborhood with a $6,500 budget. "We worked from sun up to sun rise," he said.

Harris launched his career by sending his 2002 spec script "Zombies in the Hood" to Tim Reid’s Virginia-based New Millennium Studios, producers of the 2000 comedy "Nothin’ 2 Lose." "Nothin’" producer Martin Jones "liked my style of writing," Harris said, and hired him to write the sequel.

"It never got shot, which was disappointing," Harris said. " ‘Zombies’ got me a lot of writing jobs, but the things never got made. It forced me to go out and do my own project."

Harris is gunning for a bigger budget for his next directing job, the hip-hop romance "Brooklyn Bridge," which he hopes to shoot here.

"I enjoyed working on this movie," said Fraction, whose character’s name is Alexis. "It’s a different, more raw look at why men cheat. It’s a serious movie, but there was lots of situation comedy."

Reach Harris at markharrisfilms@aol.com.

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