The star-studded film that was never released

With big stars like Cillian Murphy and Sienna Miller in leading roles, a film that was shot in Surrey could have been a box office hit, but why was it never released?

Hippie Hippie Shake was filmed in 2010 and produced by Tim Bevan, whose works include Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary.

It was shot in Silent Pool, a lake that is famous for its eerie beauty, east of Guildford.

The film was about the counterculture magazine Oz, which was involved in an infamous obscenity trial in 1971 at the Old Bailey.

“Murphy played the publication’s editor, Richard Neville, and Miller played his then-girlfriend Louise Ferrier,” Albury local historian Trevor Brook told Secret Surrey.

“You would imagine the film would be a big hit.”

Brook believed the film was never released because it “wasn’t regarded as very good”.

He said movie critic Felix Dennis, who was invited to watch a preview of the film, was quoted in The Times saying: “I think is quite possibly the worst film to be made in the 21st Century” and it was “a dog’s breakfast”.

Another critic Matt Robinson, who also previewed the film, wrote: “This is not only a good film it is educational too.

“A good document of history that many journalists and non-journalists will enjoy.”

Oz was first published in Sydney, Australia, in 1963 and its first UK publication was in 1967.

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