🔗 Share this article

A screenplay crafted by Anthony Shaffer and featuring a horror icon and the lead actor should have been an ideal venture for director Robin Hardy while the production of The Wicker Man more than half a century ago.

Even though it is now celebrated as an iconic horror film, the extent of turmoil it caused the film-makers is now revealed in newly discovered correspondence and script drafts.

The Plot of This Classic Film

This 1973 movie centers on a puritan police officer, portrayed by Edward Woodward, who arrives on an isolated Scottish isle in search of a missing girl, but finds sinister local pagans who deny she ever existed. Britt Ekland appeared 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 tense and contentious, according to the letters. In a letter to Shaffer, the director stated: “How could you handle me this way?”

The screenwriter was already famous with masterpieces like Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man reveals Hardy’s brutal cuts to the screenplay.

Heavy edits include the aristocrat’s dialogue in the ending, originally starting: “The girl was but the tip of the iceberg – the visible element. Don’t blame yourself, there was no way you could have known.”

Beyond the Creative Duo

Tensions boiled over outside the main pair. One of the producers commented: “Shaffer’s talent was marred by excessive indulgence that impels him to show he was too clever by half.”

In a note to the production team, the director complained about the editor, the editing specialist: “I don’t think he likes the subject or approach of the film … and feels that he is tired of it.”

In one letter, Christopher Lee referred to the film as “appealing and enigmatic”, despite “having to cope with a talkative producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Forgotten Documents Uncovered

A large collection of letters about the production was among multiple bags of papers left in the loft of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, Caroline. There were also unpublished drafts, storyboards, on-set photographs and financial accounts, many of which reflect the challenges experienced by the team.

The director’s children Justin and Dominic, now 60 and 63, used the material for an upcoming publication, called Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the extreme pressures faced by Hardy throughout the production of the film – from his heart attack to bankruptcy.

Family Consequences

At first, the film was a box office flop and, in the aftermath the disappointment, Hardy abandoned his spouse and their children for a new life in the US. Legal letters reveal his wife as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that Hardy owed her as much as £1m in today’s money. She was forced to sell their house and passed away in 1984, aged 51, battling addiction, never knowing that her film later turned into an international success.

Justin, an acclaimed documentary maker, described The Wicker Man as “the movie that messed up our family”.

When someone reached out by a woman who had moved into the former family home, inquiring if he wished to collect the sacks of papers, his first thought was to propose burning “all of it”.

But then he and his stepbrother Dominic opened up the sacks and realised the importance of their contents.

Revelations from the Papers

His brother, a scholar, commented: “All the big players are in there. We discovered an original script by the writer, but with dad’s annotations as filmmaker, ‘containing’ the writer’s excess. Because he was formerly a barrister, he did a lot of overexplaining and his father just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They sort of respected each other and clashed frequently.”

Writing the book has brought some “resolution”, Justin stated.

Financial Struggles

The family did not profit monetarily from the production, he added: “The bloody film earned a fortune for others. It’s unfair. Dad agreed to take a small fee. So he never received any of the upside. The actor never received any money from it as well, despite the fact he performed the film for no pay, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. Therefore, it was a harsh experience.”