🔗 Share this article Unveiling this Rift Among Filmmaker and Screenwriter of the Cult Classic Film A script written by the acclaimed writer and featuring a horror icon and Edward Woodward should have been an ideal venture for filmmaker Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man more than 50 years ago. Even though today it is celebrated as an iconic horror film, the degree of turmoil it caused the film-makers has now been uncovered in newly discovered correspondence and early versions of the script. The Storyline of This Classic Film The 1973 film centers on a devout policeman, played by the actor, who arrives on an isolated Scottish isle looking for a missing girl, only to encounter sinister local pagans who claim the girl was real. Britt Ekland appeared as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who tempts the God-fearing officer, with Lee as Lord Summerisle. Production Tensions Uncovered But the creative atmosphere was tense and contentious, according to the letters. In a message to the writer, the director stated: “How could you treat me like this?” Shaffer was already famous with masterpieces such as Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man reveals Hardy’s brutal cuts to the screenplay. Heavy edits feature the aristocrat’s dialogue in the ending, which would have begun: “The child was but the tip of the iceberg – the visible element. Do not reproach yourself, there was no way you could have known.” Apart from Writer and Director Tensions boiled over outside the main pair. One of the producers commented: “Shaffer’s talent was marred by a self-indulgence that impels him to show he was overly smart.” In a note to the producers, the director complained about the film’s editor, the editing specialist: “I believe he appreciates the subject or approach of the picture … and feels that he has had enough of it.” In a correspondence, Christopher Lee referred to the film as “appealing and mysterious”, despite “having to cope with a garrulous producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and an overpaid and hostile director”. Forgotten Documents Uncovered An extensive correspondence relating to the production was among six sack-loads of papers left in the loft of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, Caroline. Included were unpublished drafts, visual plans, production photos and financial accounts, many of which reflect the challenges experienced by the team. The director’s children Justin and Dominic, currently in their sixties, used the material for an upcoming publication, titled Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the extreme pressures on the director throughout the making of the movie – from his heart attack to bankruptcy. Personal Fallout At first, the movie failed commercially and, following the disappointment, the director left his spouse and their children for a new life in the US. Legal letters reveal his wife as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that Hardy owed her up to a large sum. She was forced to sell the family home and died in 1984, aged 51, battling alcoholism, never knowing that the project later turned into an international success. His son, a Bafta-nominated historian film-maker, called The Wicker Man as “the movie that messed up my family”. When he was contacted by a woman living in his mother’s old house, inquiring if he wished to collect the documents, his initial reaction was to propose destroying “the bloody things”. But then he and his brother examined the bags and realised the importance of what they held. Revelations from the Documents Dominic, a scholar, commented: “Every key figure are in there. We discovered the first draft by Shaffer, but with dad’s annotations as director, ‘containing’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Because he was formerly a barrister, he tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They sort of loved each other and clashed frequently.” Compiling the publication has brought some “resolution”, Justin said. Financial Struggles His family never benefited financially from the film, he added: “This movie has gone on to make so much money for others. It’s unfair. Dad accepted five grand. Thus, he missed out on the profits. Christopher Lee also did not get payment from it as well, although he performed his role for no pay, to get out of his previous studio. So, in many ways, it’s been a very unkind film.”