Makers of Dylan Thomas biopic focus on poet's tangled love life

As Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller frolicked on a windy Welsh beach this week, the paparazzi gathered in the hope of witnessing the actors share a kiss as they began shooting their latest film.

The sapphic encounter between two of Britain's hottest Hollywood properties was just one of several salacious scenes rumoured to feature in The Edge of Love, a new £5m film which dwells on the "love triangle" between the poet Dylan Thomas, his wife, Caitlin, and one of his childhood friends, Vera Killick.

The high-brow biopic centres on a long-forgotten incident in Thomas's tempestuous private life one night in 1945.

Captain William Killick, the "jealous" husband of Vera, unloaded the magazine of a sub-machine gun into the poet's home in the town of New Quay - narrowly missing the occupants - and then threatened to explode a hand grenade.

Amid fevered talk of "threesomes" and "lesbian romps", a cavalcade of photographers arrived this week in New Quay on Cardigan Bay in the hope of catching a shot of Knightley, who plays Vera, and Miller, as Caitlin, enjoying a celluloid snog.

They will be waiting a long time. The makers of the British film, which is based on a script by Knightley's mother, Sharman MacDonald, went out of their way yesterday to insist that their "intertwined love story" will feature no such graphic scenes.

Perhaps that is because they did not happen.

The Independent can reveal that the real reason for Captain Killick's rampage was not sexual jealousy but a drunken pub brawl over an alleged anti-Semitic remark while he stood on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Interviews with friends of the poet and his biographers show that any affair between Caitlin and Vera, or Vera and Thomas was extremely unlikely, not least because each of them repeatedly denied that their relationship was ever anything other than platonic.

Instead, it seems that Killick, a decorated war hero who served with the Special Operation Executive (SOE) behind German lines in Greece, sought revenge against Thomas, who spent the war making propaganda films, after feeling that his heroic efforts had gone unrecognised.

Gwen Watkins, the widow of the poet Vernon Watkins, who was one of Thomas's best friends, said: "It was nothing to do with infidelity or hanky-panky. Vera was very strait-laced about such matters and Caitlin was very, very jealous. She would not have allowed it and she had a fierce, if not psychotic, temper.

"But more importantly, Bill Killick was not interested in that. He was a big imposing man with a very quick temper who drank too much that night and was teetering on the brink of a breakdown. He was angry at Vera because she had spent all his salary and annoyed because he felt shunned by Dylan."

The events in question, which are at the heart of the film starring Cillian Murphy as Killick and Matthew Rhys as Thomas, took place on 6 March 1945 in New Quay, where Thomas and his wife, part of the bohemian Bloomsbury set, had moved in 1944. Vera Killick, who knew Thomas at school, and her husband moved to New Quay at a similar time.After a day of heavy drinking, Killick arrived at Majoda, the flimsy asbestos-walled bungalow where Thomas and Caitlin lived with their two infants.

The soldier fired his Sten gun into the house with at least five rounds passing through the room where Thomas was sitting with Caitlin, Vera and others, as well as the bedroom where the babies slept.

Paul Ferris, the author of a biography on Thomas, also questioned the film's premise of a sexual relationship between the trio. He said: "I'm afraid Ms MacDonald has simply made it up. There was certainly tension between Killick, his wife and Caitlin and Dylan. But whether it was down to anything sexual would be seriously doubtful.The explanation was far more to do with a drunken pub brawl."

According to Mr Ferris, Killick, who was angry when he found Vera had used his money to subsidise Thomas's drinking sessions, felt he was ignored when he encountered the poet and his entourage in a pub.

Mr Ferris said: "It was claimed that Killick made an anti-Semitic remark to a Jewish woman, who objected and a scuffle broke out. Killick went away saying he would put the wind up them and show them what it was like in a real war."

After firing on the bungalow, the enraged soldierthreatened to pull the pin from a hand grenade before being talked into surrendering by Thomas.

Although Killick was charged with attempted murder, he was acquitted at his trial in June 1945 after an appeal from the SOE for the case to be expedited.

Capitol Films, the production company making The Edge of Love, would not give details of the script other than to insist it did not feature any lesbian kiss or ménage à trois. Instead they said the film looked at "broken promises, passion, betrayal, the shadow of war and the constant threat of imminent death".

A spokeswoman said: "We have never said this was an exact recreation of these events. It is far more about capturing the spirit of the time and the people it portrays. And there is categorically no lesbian kiss."