Revealing the Rift Among Filmmaker and Screenwriter of the Cult Classic Film

A script written by Anthony Shaffer and featuring Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward should have been a dream project for director Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man more than 50 years ago.

Although it is now revered as an iconic horror film, the extent of misery it brought the production team has now been revealed in previously unpublished correspondence and early versions of the script.

The Plot of This Classic Film

This 1973 movie revolves around a devout policeman, portrayed by the actor, who arrives on an isolated Scottish isle looking for a lost child, but finds sinister local pagans who deny she ever existed. Britt Ekland was cast as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who tempts the religious policeman, with Lee as Lord Summerisle.

Production Conflict Revealed

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

Shaffer 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.

Heavy edits feature the aristocrat’s dialogue in the ending, originally starting: “The girl was but the tip of the iceberg – the part that showed. Do not reproach yourself, it was impossible you could have known.”

Beyond Writer and Director

Conflict escalated beyond the main pair. A producer wrote: “The writer’s skill has been offset by a self-indulgence that drove him to prove himself too clever by half.”

In a letter to the producers, the director expressed frustration about the film’s editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I believe he appreciates the subject or approach of the picture … and thinks that he is tired of it.”

In a correspondence, Christopher Lee referred to the film as “alluring and mysterious”, despite “having to cope with a talkative producer, a stressed screenwriter and an overpaid and hostile director”.

Lost Documents Found

A large collection of letters about the film was among six sack-loads of papers left in the attic of the former home of the director’s spouse, his wife. Included were unpublished drafts, visual plans, on-set photographs and budget records, which show the struggles faced by the team.

The director’s children Justin and Dominic, now 60 and 63, have drawn on the material for a forthcoming book, called Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the extreme pressures faced by Hardy throughout the making of the film – including a health crisis to financial ruin.

Personal Fallout

At first, the movie was a box office flop and, following the disappointment, Hardy abandoned his spouse and their children for a new life in the US. Legal letters show Caroline as an unacknowledged producer and that Hardy owed her up to a large sum. She was forced to give up their house and died in 1984, in her fifties, battling alcoholism, unaware that the project eventually became a global hit.

His son, an acclaimed documentary maker, described The Wicker Man as “the movie that messed up my family”.

When he was contacted by a resident living in his mother’s old house, asking whether he wanted to collect the documents, his initial reaction was to suggest burning “the bloody things”.

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

Revelations from the Papers

His brother, a scholar, said: “All the big players are in there. We discovered an original script 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 his father just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They sort of loved each other and hated each other.”

Compiling the publication provided some “closure”, the son said.

Financial Hardships

His family never benefited monetarily from the production, he added: “This movie earned a fortune for others. It’s beyond a joke. His father agreed to take a small fee. So he never received the profits. The actor also did not get payment from it as well, despite the fact that he did his role for zero, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. So, in many ways, it’s been a harsh experience.”