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A script penned by Anthony Shaffer and featuring Christopher Lee and the lead actor could have been a dream project for director Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man over 50 years ago.

Even though it is now revered as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of misery it brought the film-makers is now uncovered in previously unpublished letters and early versions of the script.

The Storyline of This Classic Film

This 1973 movie revolves around a puritan police officer, portrayed by Edward Woodward, who arrives on a remote Scottish island in search of a missing girl, only to encounter mysterious pagan residents who deny the girl was real. Britt Ekland appeared as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who tempts the God-fearing officer, with Lee as Lord Summerisle.

Creative Conflict Revealed

But the creative atmosphere was tense and contentious, according to the letters. In a letter to the writer, the director wrote: “How dare you treat me this way?”

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

Heavy edits include Summerisle’s lines in the ending, which would have begun: “The girl was only a small part – the visible element. Don’t blame yourself, there was no way for you to know.”

Apart from Writer and Director

Conflict escalated outside the writer and director. One of the producers wrote: “The writer’s skill was marred by excessive indulgence that impels him to show he was overly smart.”

In a letter to the producers, the director complained about the film’s editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I believe he appreciates the subject or approach of the film … and thinks that he has had enough of it.”

In a correspondence, Lee described the movie as “appealing and enigmatic”, despite “having to cope with a garrulous producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Forgotten Papers Found

A large collection of letters relating to the film was part of six sack-loads of papers forgotten in the loft of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, Caroline. There were also previously unseen scripts, visual plans, on-set photographs and budget records, which reflect the challenges faced by the team.

The director’s children Justin and Dominic, currently in their sixties, used the material for a forthcoming book, called Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the intense stress faced by the director throughout the production of the movie – including a health crisis to financial ruin.

Personal Consequences

At first, the movie was a box office flop and, following the disappointment, Hardy left his wife and his family for a new life in the US. Court documents reveal Caroline as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that Hardy owed her as much as a large sum. She had to sell the family home and passed away in 1984, aged 51, battling addiction, unaware that the project eventually became a global hit.

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

When someone reached out by a woman living in the former family home, asking whether he wanted to collect the sacks of papers, his initial reaction was to propose destroying “all of it”.

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

Insights from the Documents

His brother, an art historian, said: “Every key figure are in there. We found the first draft by Shaffer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘controlling’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Because he was formerly a barrister, he tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They respected each other and hated each other.”

Compiling the publication has brought some “closure”, the son stated.

Financial Hardships

The family did not profit financially from the production, he explained: “This movie earned so much money for other people. It’s beyond a joke. Dad agreed to take five grand. So he never received any of the upside. Christopher Lee also did not get any money from it as well, although he performed his role for no pay, to leave his previous studio. So, in many ways, it was a harsh experience.”