Exposing this Conflict Between Director and Screenwriter of The Wicker Man
A script penned by Anthony Shaffer and starring Christopher Lee and the lead actor should have been a dream project for filmmaker Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man more than 50 years ago.
Even though it is now revered as an iconic horror film, the extent of misery it brought the film-makers is now uncovered in previously unpublished correspondence and early versions of the script.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 travels on a remote Scottish island looking for a missing girl, only to encounter sinister local pagans who deny she ever existed. Britt Ekland was cast as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who seduces the God-fearing officer, with Christopher Lee as the pagan aristocrat.
Creative Conflict Uncovered
However, the working environment was tense and fractious, the documents show. In a letter to Shaffer, Hardy wrote: “How dare you handle me like this?”
Shaffer was already famous with masterpieces like Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man shows the director’s harsh edits to his work.
Extensive crossings-out include Summerisle’s lines in the final scene, originally starting: “The girl was but the tip of the iceberg – 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 excessive indulgence that impels him to prove himself too clever by half.”
In a note to the producers, the director complained about the editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I don’t think he appreciates the subject or style of the picture … and thinks that he is tired of it.”
In a correspondence, Lee described the film as “appealing and enigmatic”, even with “having to cope with a talkative producer, a stressed screenwriter and an overpaid and hostile director”.
Forgotten Papers Uncovered
A large collection of letters about the production was part of six sack-loads of papers forgotten in the loft of the old house of the director’s spouse, his wife. Included were previously unseen scripts, storyboards, on-set photographs and financial accounts, which show the struggles faced by the team.
The director’s children his two sons, now 60 and 63, used the material for a forthcoming book, called Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the intense stress faced by Hardy during the making of the movie – including a health crisis to bankruptcy.
Personal Consequences
Initially, the film was a box office flop and, following of its failure, the director left his wife and his family for a new life in the US. Court documents show his wife as an unacknowledged producer and that Hardy was indebted to her as much as £1m in today’s money. She was forced to sell the family home and passed away in 1984, aged 51, battling alcoholism, unaware that her film later turned into an international success.
His son, a Bafta-nominated historian film-maker, called The Wicker Man as “the film that messed up my family”.
When someone reached out by a resident living in the former family home, asking whether he wished to retrieve the sacks of papers, his first thought was to suggest burning “all of it”.
But then he and his brother examined the sacks and understood the significance of what they held.
Revelations from the Documents
His brother, a scholar, said: “Every key figure are in there. We found the first draft by the writer, but with his father’s notes as filmmaker, ‘containing’ the writer’s excess. Because he was formerly a barrister, he did a lot of overexplaining and his father just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They loved each other and clashed frequently.”
Compiling the publication provided some “resolution”, the son stated.
Financial Hardships
His family did not profit monetarily from the production, he added: “The bloody film has gone on to make so much money for others. It’s unfair. Dad agreed to take a small fee. Thus, he missed out on any of the upside. The actor never received payment from it either, although he performed his role for zero, to leave his previous studio. So, in many ways, it was a very unkind film.”
