Years later, it's a happy ending for lost Brit flick

Published on Sunday 24 May 2009 22:27

IN A very strange case of life imitating art, a low-budget Brit flick about three characters who try to make a film, but fail miserably, has been released on DVD – eight years after the rough cut vanished without trace.

That Deadwood Feeling, a black comedy starring Jack Davenport from Pirates of the Caribbean and Dexter Fletcher of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, was dropped off at a negative cutting lab in the south of England in 2002. Then the lab abruptly closed down, and the film disappeared.

It sounds suspiciously like a PR stunt, but Surrey Police have confirmed the film's disappearance was reported as a crime.

Donall McCusker, the film's producer, told The Scotsman the filmmakers were allowed into the deserted lab to see if they could figure out what went on, but found the place in disarray.

"The CID concluded it had either been stolen, lost or maliciously hidden. It remains a whodunnit," said Mr McCusker.

The newly released version of the film was rescued from low-quality videotape copies made during the editing process.

Dexter Fletcher told The Scotsman: "The whole thing is completely bizarre. It was heartbreaking for the director and producer – they spent their life savings making it. If it was not such a personal disaster for them, it would be a pretty good publicity stunt."

That Deadwood Feeling also features performances by David Soul of Starsky and Hutch fame, and Angus Deayton.