For a few short weeks in 1995 a small fishing village in Cork was taken over by a multi-million dollar Hollywood film, Divine Rapture, starring Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp, Debra Winger and John Hurt.
A star studded cast and full blown Hollywood production rolled into the quiet town and seduced the locals with the charms of Hollywood glamour. Roles as extras in the film were given out and businesses were promised they would see an almost unimaginable financial windfall, both from the immediate production spending and the film’s legacy providing a steady tourist market.
Ballycotton was set to become the latest small Irish town made famous and prosperous by the touch of Hollywood. Just two weeks into filming, however, and with only twenty four minutes of film shot, the cast and crew had departed, with local businesses left to carry the legacy of the production’s unpaid debts.
Tomorrow night on Sky Arts 1 there is another chance to see the documentary Ballybrando, which looks back at the ill-fated production and tells the story of a project doomed from the beginning by dodgy financial dealings behind the scenes of a Hollywood financing company.
The producer, David Navidi, had secured his stars and his script and set off for Cork. The production company driving the film had their funding promised to them but had not yet seen a dollar. They went ahead with filming on good faith that the funding would materialise shortly. Those dreams soon crumbled, as it became apparent there was no money coming to keep the production alive. It was soon revealed there was more than misfortune to the failure to fund the film, as the agent of Debra Winger went to collect her appearance fee, only to find a car park at the address of the funding company’s deposit firm.
The story of Divine Rapture and Ballycotton is not, however, limited to financial impropriety in Los Angeles. It’s a story of one of Hollywood’s odder failures, with the eccentricity of Marlon Brando (telling Ballycotton locals the Irish people reminded him of Native Americans, shaving his head against the director’s wishes - on the first day of filming etc.) and the painful cost it left the small village to pay.
Tomorrow night’s documentary sees Barry Navidi interview the cast and crew of Divine Rapture and then return to Ballycotton. He speaks to the locals about their memories of the film before showing them the twenty four minutes of the film that never was.
There have been reports recently that Navidi and his production crews will return to Ballycotton to finally complete their film. Navidi is, understandably, not sure that the locals will be quite so seduced by the glamour of Hollywood on this occasion.
Ballybrando is on Sky Arts 1, tomorrow night (Tues) at 8 pm.
