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A screenplay penned by the acclaimed writer and starring Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward was expected to be a dream project for director Robin Hardy while the filming of The Wicker Man over half a century ago.

Even though it is now revered as an iconic horror film, the extent of turmoil it caused the production team has now been uncovered in newly discovered correspondence and early versions of the script.

The Storyline of The Wicker Man

The 1973 film centers on a puritan police officer, portrayed by Edward Woodward, who arrives on a remote Scottish island looking for a missing girl, but finds sinister local pagans who claim she ever existed. Britt Ekland was cast as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who seduces the religious policeman, with Lee as Lord Summerisle.

Creative Tensions Revealed

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

The screenwriter had already made his name with acclaimed works like Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man shows the director’s harsh edits to the screenplay.

Extensive crossings-out feature Summerisle’s lines in the final scene, originally starting: “The girl was but the tip of the iceberg – the part that showed. Don’t blame yourself, there was no way for you to know.”

Beyond Writer and Director

Conflict escalated beyond the writer and director. A producer wrote: “The writer’s skill was marred by excessive indulgence that impels him to prove himself too clever by half.”

In a note to the producers, the director expressed frustration about the film’s editor, the editing specialist: “I believe he appreciates the theme or approach of the picture … and thinks that he is tired of it.”

In a correspondence, Lee referred to the movie as “alluring and enigmatic”, even with “having to cope with a talkative producer, a stressed screenwriter and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Lost Documents Uncovered

A large collection of letters relating to the production was among multiple bags of papers left in the loft of the former home of Hardy’s third wife, his wife. There were also unpublished drafts, storyboards, on-set photographs and budget records, which reflect the struggles experienced by the team.

Hardy’s sons his two sons, now 60 and 63, used the material for a forthcoming book, titled Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the extreme pressures on Hardy throughout the making of the film – from his heart attack to financial ruin.

Family Consequences

Initially, the movie failed commercially and, following the disappointment, the director left his spouse and their children for a new life in America. Court documents reveal his wife as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that he owed her up to a large sum. She had to give up the family home and died in 1984, aged 51, battling alcoholism, never knowing that the project later turned into an international success.

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

When he was contacted by a woman who had moved into his mother’s old house, asking whether he wanted to collect the documents, his initial reaction was to propose destroying “the bloody things”.

But afterward he and his stepbrother Dominic examined the bags and realised the importance of what they held.

Revelations from the Papers

His brother, an art historian, commented: “All the big players are in there. We discovered an original script by Shaffer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘containing’ the writer’s excess. Due to his legal background, Shaffer tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They sort of respected each other and clashed frequently.”

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

Financial Struggles

The family never benefited monetarily from the production, he explained: “The bloody film earned so much money for other people. It’s beyond a joke. Dad agreed to take a small fee. So he never received the profits. The actor also did not get payment from it either, although that he did the film for no pay, to get out of his previous studio. So, in many ways, it was a very unkind film.”