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A screenplay penned by Anthony Shaffer and featuring Christopher Lee and the lead actor should have been an ideal venture for filmmaker Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man over 50 years ago.

Even though today it is celebrated as an iconic horror film, the extent of misery it caused the film-makers is now revealed in newly discovered letters and early versions of the script.

The Storyline of The Wicker Man

The 1973 film centers on a devout policeman, portrayed by Edward Woodward, who travels on a remote Scottish island in search of a lost child, only to encounter mysterious pagan residents who claim the girl was real. Britt Ekland appeared as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who seduces the religious policeman, with Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Production Conflict Revealed

However, the working environment was tense and contentious, the documents show. In a letter to Shaffer, the director wrote: “How dare you handle me like this?”

Shaffer had already made his name with acclaimed works like Sleuth, but his typed draft of The Wicker Man reveals Hardy’s brutal cuts to his work.

Heavy edits include the aristocrat’s dialogue in the final scene, originally starting: “The child was but the tip of the iceberg – the part that showed. Don’t blame yourself, there was no way you could have known.”

Apart from Writer and Director

Conflict escalated beyond the main pair. One of the producers commented: “The writer’s skill was marred by excessive indulgence that impels him to prove himself overly smart.”

In a letter to the production team, the director expressed frustration about the editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I don’t think he appreciates the theme or style of the picture … and feels that he has had enough of it.”

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

Lost Papers Found

A large collection of letters relating to the production was among six sack-loads of documents forgotten in the attic of the former home of Hardy’s third wife, his wife. There were also unpublished drafts, storyboards, production photos and financial accounts, which show the challenges faced by the team.

The director’s children Justin and Dominic, now 60 and 63, used the material for a forthcoming book, called Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the intense stress faced by the director during the making of the film – including a health crisis to financial ruin.

Family Consequences

At first, the movie was a box office flop and, following the disappointment, Hardy left his spouse and his family for a fresh start in the US. Court documents reveal Caroline as an unacknowledged producer and that he owed her as much as £1m in today’s money. She was forced to give up the family home and passed away in 1984, in her fifties, suffering from alcoholism, never knowing that the project later turned into a global hit.

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

When he was contacted by a woman who had moved into the former family home, inquiring if he wished to retrieve the sacks of papers, his first thought was to suggest burning “all of it”.

But afterward he and his brother examined the sacks and understood the importance of their contents.

Insights from the Papers

Dominic, an art historian, commented: “Every key figure is represented. We found an original script by the writer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘containing’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Because he was formerly a barrister, he tended to overwrite and his father just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They loved each other and clashed frequently.”

Writing the book has brought some “resolution”, the son said.

Financial Hardships

The family never benefited financially from the film, he added: “The bloody film earned so much money for other people. It’s unfair. His father accepted five grand. So he never received the profits. The actor never received any money from it either, despite the fact that he did the film for no pay, to leave his previous studio. So, in many ways, it’s been a very unkind film.”