🔗 Share this article

A screenplay written by the acclaimed writer and starring Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward could have been an ideal venture for director Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man over half a century ago.

Although it is now revered as an iconic horror film, the extent of turmoil it brought the film-makers has now been uncovered in previously unpublished letters and early versions of the script.

The Plot of The Wicker Man

The 1973 film centers on a puritan police officer, played by Edward Woodward, who arrives on an isolated Scottish isle in search of a missing girl, only to encounter mysterious pagan residents who deny the girl was real. Britt Ekland was cast as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who seduces the God-fearing officer, with Christopher Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Creative Conflict Revealed

However, the working environment was frayed and fractious, the documents show. In a message to the writer, the director stated: “How could you handle me this way?”

Shaffer was already famous with acclaimed works like Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man shows the director’s harsh edits to the screenplay.

Extensive crossings-out include Summerisle’s lines in the final scene, originally starting: “The girl was but the tip of the iceberg – the visible element. Don’t blame yourself, it was impossible for you to know.”

Apart from Writer and Director

Tensions boiled over outside the main pair. A producer wrote: “Shaffer’s talent was marred by excessive indulgence that impels him to prove himself overly smart.”

In a letter to the production team, Hardy expressed frustration about the film’s editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I don’t think he likes the theme or approach of the film … and thinks that he is tired of it.”

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

Lost Papers Found

An extensive correspondence relating to the film was among six sack-loads of papers left in the attic of the old house of the director’s spouse, his wife. There were also previously unseen scripts, storyboards, on-set photographs and budget records, which show the challenges faced by the film-makers.

Hardy’s sons his two sons, currently in their sixties, have drawn on these documents for an upcoming publication, titled Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the intense stress on the director during the production of the film – including a health crisis to bankruptcy.

Personal Fallout

Initially, the film was a box office flop and, following the disappointment, Hardy abandoned his spouse and their children for a fresh start in the US. Legal letters reveal his wife as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that Hardy was indebted to her up to a large sum. She was forced to sell their house and died in 1984, in her fifties, suffering from alcoholism, never knowing that her film eventually became an international success.

Justin, a Bafta-nominated historian film-maker, described The Wicker Man as “the movie that messed up our family”.

When he was contacted by a resident living in the former family home, inquiring if he wanted to collect the documents, his first thought was to suggest destroying “all of it”.

But afterward he and his brother examined the sacks and realised the significance of what they held.

Revelations from the Papers

His brother, an art historian, said: “Every key figure are in there. We discovered an original script by Shaffer, but with his father’s notes as filmmaker, ‘controlling’ the writer’s excess. Because he was formerly a barrister, he tended to overwrite and his father just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They sort of loved each other and hated each other.”

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

Monetary Struggles

His family did not profit financially from the film, he added: “The bloody film has gone on to make a fortune for others. It’s beyond a joke. Dad agreed to take a small fee. Thus, he missed out on the profits. The actor never received any money from it either, despite the fact that he did the film for no pay, to get out of his previous studio. Therefore, it’s been a harsh experience.”