Actually, the image I posted is already fairly heavily processed. I think you're on to something with the background, tho. The image is simply too high contrast. The image I posted happens to be a scanned print, but I've had similar results with scanned negatives, where the processor hasn't had a chance to muck it up.

Oh, and actually, the background is a medium tan color, so the printer already lightened it considerably (it is almost white on the original print).

I kind of miss my good old 5247! The nice sparkly Kodak Max looks great for lots of stuff, but I think it's just plain too contrasty for this work.