If all the roads in Ireland were to converge at a final destination, you would probably find yourself in Ballycotton, Co Cork. A tiny village on a rocky headland, it is as removed and cosy as its name suggests. Its harbour is stocked with a colourful fishing fleet and traditional music seeps from the pubs on Main Street. Despite an annual running marathon that passes through the town, it is slow-paced, sleepy, and cocooned from the outside world. But although 200-ft cliffs keep the Atlantic at bay and an offshore lighthouse looks out for danger, nothing could protect Ballycotton from nature's cruellest force: Hollywood.

Back in 1995, Johnny Depp, Debra Winger, and Marlon Brando rolled into town to make a film called Divine Rapture. Ballycotton looked set to become an Irish landmark in the manner of Cong in County Mayo, which hosted John Wayne's The Quiet Man, or Dingle in Kerry, where David Lean filmed Ryan's Daughter. But there are no mementos or tourist memorabilia in Ballycotton because Divine Rapture was never completed: the production packed up and left with only two weeks of film in the can.

Fourteen years later, Divine Rapture is still the elephant in the room. "It's not really talked about at all," says Paddy Egan, as he drives a minibus through the winding roads of Cork. "I'd say some people wouldn't talk about it because of the amount of money they lost – they'd be embarrassed. People in town were badly stung. I was lucky, but some were put out of business." Egan, who provided transport for the film, moved his coach-hire business to another town after the production collapsed, and says he lost around £6,600 in bounced cheques. Everyone from local police to caterers to fishermen were unpaid and the village hotel, the Bayview, is reportedly owed tens of thousands.

But the memory of this cinematic fiasco is not only raw for Ballycotton's residents. "Time goes on," says Winger, veteran of films including An Officer and a Gentleman. "The stories that you remember for whatever reason are often the ones like this – the traumatic ones. It was a life lesson, that's the best way to put it."

Divine Rapture was to tell the story of Mary (Winger), a machinist in a remote village, who dies only to rise from her coffin during the funeral. The woman is heralded as a saint, although it turns out she has a rare disorder that slows the heart-rate. Written by American production designer Glenda Ganis, the story had a mischievous twinkle that recalled Ealing comedies, and it caught the attention of fledgling producer Barry Navidi. After reading the screenplay in 1989, he spent the next six years trying to get the film into production.

Navidi's work bore fruit when the script found Brando. The Godfather actor wanted to play a priest in the story, although this was only part of his motivation. It was also an opportunity to become an Irish citizen – the Irish, he told people in Ballycotton, reminded him of Native Americans. Brando may not have been the full shilling, but he still had clout: he phoned Depp, his co-star in his previous film, 1994's Don Juan DeMarco, and Winger. Both signed up, along with John Hurt.

Suddenly, Navidi had a cast, but investors were still wary, even though he budgeted the film at a modest $12m. "We had a project that wasn't arthouse but was a foreign movie," says Navidi. "The American market didn't understand the location but it was a small picture, a Full Monty or a Waking Ned. Here we had a small project, a small story, but with big stars." Eventually, he found sympathetic ears in CineFin, a Los Angeles-based company that claimed to have $300m credit with Orion Pictures. Navidi checked the company's background and found a clean bill of health. He did not know then, however, that two CineFin associates had been in trouble with US federal authorities over alleged banking improprieties. As Divine Rapture finally became a reality, so its downfall was already being written.

For the residents of Ballycotton, the circus had arrived. In the summer of 1995, five or six weeks before production started, props vans and trucks, catering marquee and set designers moved in, and began transforming the village into a 1950s locale. "Everyone was happy. It was a great buzz for the village," recalls Egan. Amongst the early arrivals was director Thom Eberhardt, who had made low budget indie films before being lured by Hollywood schlock like Captain Ron. "I didn't come to Divine Rapture on the upswing, that's for sure," he says now. The director had heard about Brando's reputation as a handful and vowed to stand his ground, but the actor did not arrive until the night before shooting began. After settling into his rented Georgian mansion, Brando phoned Eberhardt asking if they could meet at 11pm.

"I said, 'No, Marlon, I'm too tired. I've been rehearsing all day.' Then he said, 'I'm going to shave my hair off and wear an orange wig'. Panic set in: 'Get me a car!' As I pulled in, the hair and make-up people were leaving. This guy comes down the stairs looking like a dick with ears. Bald as a buzzard. Barry and his partners were in Ballycotton celebrating because, at long last, their movie was going to start shooting. I stumbled in and must have been white as a sheet because they asked me if I was sick. I said, 'We have to talk about Marlon Brando.' I thought I could handle this guy, but after one meeting, I wasn't so sure."

Depp, on the other hand, was a more relaxed proposition. He played a journalist sent to investigate Mary's so-called miracle, and spent his time strumming a guitar in his Winnebago or chatting to everyone from locals to stray dogs. Unsurprisingly, a mob of teenage girls arrived in Ballycotton seeking a glimpse of the heartthrob.

Depp and Brando had an interesting relationship, according to Winger. "They were definitely having a relationship that sometimes flowed over into the time in front of the camera," she says. "Johnny really looked up to Marlon and Marlon, of course, loved having an acolyte. I got the impression that the main reason Johnny had come was to work with Brando."

Everything seemed to be going well, despite the growing factions, but behind the scenes, panic had set in. CineFin had yet to send any money, forcing the production to proceed on good faith, and two weeks into filming, the bottom fell out. Winger's agent went to collect her fee from CineFin's escrow deposit company in Los Angeles, only to discover a parking lot at the given address. "I felt like I was pushed out of a plane without a parachute," says Navidi. "This must be a nightmare. We all know it's hard to make movies, but I can't believe this. It meant I couldn't rescue the picture. Movies run out of money all the time, it's nothing new – but when something like that happens everybody gets scared and they realise there must be a skeleton in the closet. We had no choice but to abandon production."

Winger was devastated. Eberhardt recalls meeting the actress in an American Express office in the city of Cork, some 25 miles from Ballycotton, where she was withdrawing her own money to hand out to the villagers who had looked after her children. "I looked around at these people I had gotten to know," says Winger. "We used someone's fishing boat every day. You don't do this to people. I couldn't stand the thought that this is what showbusiness does. It was devastating for them – not only had we not paid them for the rental of the houses and fishing boats, but they hadn't made the money they would have made catching the fish."

Despite Winger's altruism, the only person involved in the film to get paid was Brando, who disappeared (without Irish citizenship), as soon as he sniffed trouble. Brando may have been eccentric, but he was not stupid; he had secured $1m of his $4m fee in advance. The villagers, however, were not so lucky. They had been promised an investment of around $4m, but found themselves bankrupted by the labyrinthine ways of Hollywood. Despite talk of lawsuits, no one was ever held accountable for the debacle.

"I can't believe it really. It wasn't some fly-by-night production, it had big equipment, it was a regular movie," says Winger. "If I had been living there, and I had been treated like that, I would never get involved in another Hollywood production."

Indeed, the film-makers could move on, but Ballycotton was left with a lingering sense of failure and a sense of what could have been. Fourteen years later, the story is still a sore point. "If the film was finished, it would have been a major success story for the village for years and years," says Paddy Egan. "The opposite was the case. I suppose that is why we call it Divine Rupture."