🔗 Share this article

A screenplay penned by Anthony Shaffer and featuring Christopher Lee and the lead actor was expected to be an ideal venture for filmmaker Robin Hardy while the filming of The Wicker Man over 50 years ago.

Although it is now celebrated as an iconic horror film, the degree of misery it caused the film-makers is now revealed in newly discovered letters and early versions of the script.

The Storyline of The Wicker Man

This 1973 movie revolves around a puritan police officer, played by Edward Woodward, who travels on a remote Scottish island looking for a lost child, but finds sinister local pagans who claim she ever existed. the actress was cast as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who seduces the religious policeman, with Lee as Lord Summerisle.

Production Conflict Revealed

But the creative atmosphere was frayed and fractious, according to the letters. In a message to Shaffer, Hardy stated: “How dare you handle me like this?”

Shaffer had already made his name with acclaimed works such as Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man shows Hardy’s brutal cuts to his work.

Extensive crossings-out feature Summerisle’s lines in the final scene, which would have begun: “The girl was but the tip of the iceberg – the visible element. Do not reproach yourself, it was impossible you could have known.”

Beyond Writer and Director

Conflict escalated outside the writer and director. One of the producers wrote: “The writer’s skill has been offset by excessive indulgence that impels him to prove himself overly smart.”

In a note to the production team, Hardy complained about the editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I believe he appreciates the theme or style of the picture … and feels that he is tired of it.”

In a correspondence, Christopher Lee referred to the movie as “alluring and enigmatic”, despite “dealing with a talkative producer, a stressed screenwriter and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Lost Documents Found

A large collection of letters relating to the film was among six sack-loads of documents forgotten in the loft of the former home of the director’s spouse, Caroline. Included were unpublished drafts, visual plans, production photos and budget records, many of which reflect the challenges faced by the film-makers.

Hardy’s sons Justin and Dominic, now 60 and 63, used the material for an upcoming publication, titled Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the extreme pressures on the director during the making of the movie – including a health crisis to financial ruin.

Family Consequences

At first, the film was a box office flop and, following of its failure, Hardy left his wife and their children for a new life in America. Legal letters reveal his wife as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that Hardy was indebted to her as much as £1m in today’s money. She had to sell the family home and died in 1984, in her fifties, suffering from addiction, unaware that the project eventually became an international success.

His son, a Bafta-nominated historian film-maker, called The Wicker Man as “the film that messed up my family”.

When he was contacted by a resident living in the former family home, inquiring if he wanted to retrieve the sacks of papers, his initial reaction was to propose destroying “the bloody things”.

But then he and his stepbrother Dominic examined the sacks and understood the importance of what they held.

Insights from the Documents

Dominic, an art historian, said: “Every key figure is represented. We discovered the first draft by the writer, but with dad’s annotations as filmmaker, ‘controlling’ the writer’s excess. Due to his legal background, Shaffer tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They sort of respected each other and clashed frequently.”

Compiling the publication has brought some “resolution”, the son said.

Monetary Hardships

The family did not profit monetarily from the production, he added: “This movie has gone on to make so much money for others. It’s unfair. Dad agreed to take a small fee. So he never received the profits. The actor also did not get payment from it either, despite the fact he performed his role for no pay, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. Therefore, it’s been a very unkind film.”