🔗 Share this article

A script penned by the acclaimed writer and starring Christopher Lee and the lead actor should have been a dream project for filmmaker Robin Hardy while the production of The Wicker Man over half a century ago.

Although today it is celebrated as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of turmoil it caused the film-makers has now been revealed in previously unpublished letters and early versions of the script.

The Plot of This Classic Film

This 1973 movie revolves around a puritan police officer, portrayed by the actor, who travels on a remote Scottish island in search of a lost child, only to encounter sinister local pagans who deny the girl was real. the actress was cast as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who seduces the God-fearing officer, with Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle.

Production Conflict Revealed

However, the working environment was frayed and contentious, according to the letters. In a letter to Shaffer, Hardy wrote: “How could you treat me this way?”

The screenwriter had already made his name with masterpieces like Sleuth, but his typed draft of The Wicker Man reveals the director’s harsh edits to the screenplay.

Extensive crossings-out include the aristocrat’s dialogue in the ending, which would have begun: “The girl was only a small part – the part that showed. Do not reproach yourself, there was no way you could have known.”

Apart from Writer and Director

Tensions boiled over beyond the main pair. A producer wrote: “The writer’s skill has been offset by a self-indulgence that impels him to show he was too clever by half.”

In a note to the production team, the director complained about the film’s editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I believe he appreciates the subject or style of the film … and thinks that he is tired of it.”

In a correspondence, Lee described the film as “appealing and enigmatic”, despite “having to cope with a garrulous producer, a stressed screenwriter and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Forgotten Documents Found

An extensive correspondence relating to the production was among six sack-loads of documents left in the loft of the former home of Hardy’s third wife, his wife. There were also unpublished drafts, visual plans, on-set photographs and financial accounts, many of which show the challenges experienced by the film-makers.

Hardy’s sons Justin and Dominic, currently in their sixties, used these documents for a forthcoming book, titled Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the intense stress on Hardy throughout 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, the director left his spouse and their children for a fresh start in America. Court documents reveal Caroline as an unacknowledged producer and that he owed her as much as £1m in today’s money. She had to sell the family home and passed away in 1984, in her fifties, suffering from addiction, unaware that the project eventually became a global hit.

His son, an acclaimed documentary maker, called The Wicker Man as “the movie that ruined our family”.

When he was contacted by a woman who had moved into his mother’s old house, inquiring if he wished to collect the sacks of papers, his initial reaction was to suggest destroying “the bloody things”.

But then he and his brother opened up the bags and understood the significance of what they held.

Revelations from the Documents

Dominic, a scholar, said: “Every key figure is represented. We found an original script by the writer, but with dad’s annotations as director, ‘controlling’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Due to his legal background, Shaffer did a lot of overexplaining and his father just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They respected each other and clashed frequently.”

Writing the book provided some “closure”, the son stated.

Monetary Struggles

His family did not profit financially from the film, he added: “The bloody film earned so much money for others. It’s beyond a joke. His father accepted a small fee. Thus, he missed out on the profits. Christopher Lee also did not get payment from it as well, despite the fact he performed his role for zero, to get out of Hammer [Horror films]. So, in many ways, it’s been a very unkind film.”