Alex Kershaw has fond memories of Bedford.

His 2003 book, "The Bedford Boys," recounts the story of 19 Bedford-area men who died 61 years ago today in the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France during World War II. That death toll is considered one of the largest per capita suffered by any American community and is a big reason why the National D-Day Memorial is located in Bedford.

Kershaw's book intersperses images of the largest land, air and sea invasion with the despair and sorrow felt back home in Virginia.

Kershaw spent two years writing the book, which made the New York Times' best-seller list. As part of his research, the British-born, Vermont-based author made several trips to Bedford and Southwest Virginia to interview D-Day survivors and family members of fallen veterans.

"I've only ever had very positive experiences when the word Bedford comes up," Kershaw said.

Until lately.

Kershaw said he's feeling forlorn about a potential lawsuit he's considering against a Virginia film company that plans to make a documentary about Bedford's D-Day losses.

He says The Johnson Group, a McLean-based production company, worked with him for nearly a year on a film that would be based in large part on research from his book, then walked away without paying him a dime.

The Johnson Group has produced a number of award-winning films, most recently "Paper Clips," about a group of middle school children from Whitwell, Tenn., who undertook a project to collect one paper clip for every soul lost in the Holocaust.

Robert Johnson, the company's president, said the film is being distributed to theaters around the country by Miramax, and will be shown on HBO this fall.

Two years ago when "The Bedford Boys" was published, Johnson said his company approached Kershaw about working with him on a movie that would focus on the effect of the D-Day losses on the Bedford community. A financial arrangement was never completed, Johnson said.

"We talked with him very amicably and said we'd like to see if we could use the title of your book and your resource material, because he's done a lot of the research," Johnson said. "It would save us a lot of time. So we told him that we still had to get funding for the film. ... At that time we were talking with PBS."

That funding never materialized, Johnson said.

Kershaw wanted $10,000 for his input on the film, and the rights to his story, but no formal contract was ever made with Kershaw and he never got paid, Johnson said.

"We said, 'Look, we don't have the money, Alex. We're still trying to get funding. If we get funding for the film, we'd like to come back to you at a certain point and start talking again,'" Johnson said. "He said very belligerently, 'If you do, the terms will be a lot higher than they are now.'"

Johnson said the story rights were another obstacle.

"He wanted $10,000 for the rights to the story. We told him we believe that the story belongs to the people of Bedford. It's in the public domain. He can't copyright the story. He can copyright the words that he uses to write the story and the title of the book."

Kershaw denies that, because his research for the book included many accounts from a variety of newspaper, magazine and book sources regarding Bedford soldiers.

"When it comes to stories like Bedford, no one owns it," Kershaw said. "I've never ever pretended, as this guy Johnson said, that I ever owned the story."

Kershaw said it's clear to him that his book is the inspiration for any movie on Bedford that Johnson may make. Why else, he said, would producers from Johnson's company have corresponded with him and his agent for nearly a year, picking his brain about how they could make their movie, all the while promising him that funding would soon be available.

"I felt very p----- off," Kershaw said. "They wasted a year. I felt that was a form of theft."

The time period during the negotiations on the movie was critical, Kershaw said, because the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion was approaching in 2004.

"That was important because networks and broadcasts would have looked for that 60th anniversary peg," Kershaw said.

The 60th anniversary came and went and the movie was never made.

Fast-forward to this year, when the Virginia General Assembly appropriated $800,000 to the Virginia Film Office to dole out to film companies that want to make movies focusing on Virginia history.

Rita McClenny with the film office said the funds will be available July 1.

Johnson wants to tap some or all of that film money to make the Bedford documentary.

"We're working on our outline and budget and will be making a request soon," he said, estimating he'll need up to $1.2 million.

But Johnson has no plans to work with Kershaw again or pay him for past work if he gets funding for the film.

Kershaw, contacted last week in Mexico, where he is writing a book about American fighter pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain, said if the movie is made, he'll decide then whether to pursue legal action.

To a degree, he would like to forget the whole thing in an effort to preserve his fondness for Bedford.

"It's only been good for me. And I'm loath to have that not be the case anymore because of something to do with basically these unscrupulous TV people. Part of me wants to say forget about it. If they want to go make a movie, fine. Just don't involve me."