🔗 Share this article Exposing this Struggle Between Director and Screenwriter of the Cult Classic Film A script penned by Anthony Shaffer and featuring a horror icon and Edward Woodward was expected to be an ideal venture for director Robin Hardy while the filming of The Wicker Man over half a century ago. Even though today it is revered as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of misery it caused the film-makers is now revealed in newly discovered correspondence and early versions of the script. The Storyline of This Classic Film This 1973 movie revolves around a devout policeman, played by the actor, who travels on a remote Scottish island looking for a missing girl, only to encounter sinister local pagans who deny the girl was real. Britt Ekland appeared as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who tempts the religious policeman, with Lee as Lord Summerisle. Creative Conflict Revealed But the creative atmosphere was tense and fractious, according to the letters. In a letter to Shaffer, the director stated: “How could you handle me like this?” Shaffer had already made his name with acclaimed works like Sleuth, but his typed draft of The Wicker Man shows Hardy’s brutal cuts to his work. Extensive crossings-out include Summerisle’s lines in the final scene, originally starting: “The child was only a small part – the visible element. Don’t blame yourself, there was no way you could have known.” Apart from Writer and Director Tensions boiled over beyond the main pair. One of the producers wrote: “The writer’s skill was marred by a self-indulgence that impels him to prove himself overly smart.” In a note to the production team, the director expressed frustration about the editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I believe he appreciates the theme or style of the film … and thinks that he has had enough of it.” In a correspondence, Lee referred to the movie as “appealing and mysterious”, despite “having to cope with a talkative producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and an overpaid and hostile director”. Forgotten Documents Found An extensive correspondence relating to the production was part of six sack-loads of papers left in the attic of the former home of Hardy’s third wife, Caroline. There were also unpublished drafts, visual plans, production photos and budget records, many of which reflect the struggles experienced by the team. Hardy’s sons his two sons, currently in their sixties, used the material for a forthcoming book, called Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the extreme pressures faced by Hardy during the production of the film – from his heart attack to bankruptcy. Family Consequences At first, the movie was a box office flop and, in the aftermath of its failure, Hardy abandoned his wife and their children for a fresh start in America. Legal letters reveal his wife as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that he was indebted to her as much as a large sum. She was forced to sell the family home and died in 1984, aged 51, battling addiction, unaware that the project eventually became an international success. 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 who had moved into his mother’s old house, asking whether he wished to retrieve the documents, his first thought was to suggest destroying “the bloody things”. But then he and his stepbrother Dominic examined the sacks and realised the significance of what they held. Insights from the Papers His brother, an art historian, said: “All the big players is represented. We found the first draft by the writer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘containing’ the writer’s excess. Due to his legal background, he did a lot of overexplaining and dad just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They sort of respected each other and clashed frequently.” Writing the book provided some “closure”, the son stated. Monetary Hardships The family never benefited financially from the film, he explained: “This movie has gone on to make so much money for others. It’s beyond a joke. His father agreed to take a small fee. So he never received any of the upside. Christopher Lee also did not get payment from it as well, although that he did the film for no pay, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. So, in many ways, it was a harsh experience.”