Revealing the Rift Between Filmmaker and Writer of the Cult Classic Film

A screenplay crafted by the acclaimed writer and featuring a horror icon and the lead actor was expected to be an ideal venture for director Robin Hardy while the filming of The Wicker Man more than half a century ago.

Even though it is now celebrated as an iconic horror film, 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 The Wicker Man

The 1973 film revolves around a puritan police officer, portrayed by Edward Woodward, who arrives on an isolated Scottish isle in search of a missing girl, only to encounter mysterious pagan residents who claim the girl was real. Britt Ekland was cast as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who tempts the God-fearing officer, with Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle.

Production Conflict Uncovered

However, the working environment was frayed and contentious, according to the letters. In a letter to the writer, the director stated: “How dare you treat me like this?”

Shaffer was already famous with acclaimed works such as Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man reveals Hardy’s brutal cuts to his work.

Extensive crossings-out feature Summerisle’s lines in the ending, originally starting: “The girl was only a small part – the part that showed. Do not reproach yourself, it was impossible for you to know.”

Apart from Writer and Director

Conflict escalated beyond the writer and director. A producer wrote: “Shaffer’s talent has been offset by a self-indulgence that impels him to prove himself too clever by half.”

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

In a correspondence, Lee described the film as “alluring and mysterious”, despite “having to cope with a talkative producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and an overpaid and hostile director”.

Lost Documents Uncovered

A large collection of letters relating to the production was part of six sack-loads of papers left in the attic of the former home of the director’s spouse, Caroline. Included were previously unseen scripts, storyboards, production photos and financial accounts, many of which show the struggles faced by the team.

Hardy’s sons Justin and Dominic, currently in their sixties, have drawn on the material for a forthcoming book, called Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the intense stress on Hardy throughout the production of the film – including a health crisis to bankruptcy.

Family Fallout

At first, the film failed commercially and, in the aftermath the disappointment, Hardy abandoned his spouse and their children for a new life in the US. Court documents show his wife as an unacknowledged producer and that he owed her up to £1m in today’s money. She had to sell the family home and died in the 1980s, aged 51, suffering from addiction, unaware that the project later turned into a global hit.

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

When someone reached out by a woman living in the former family home, asking whether he wanted to collect the documents, his initial reaction was to suggest destroying “all of it”.

But then he and his stepbrother Dominic examined the bags and realised the significance of their contents.

Insights from the Documents

His brother, a scholar, commented: “Every key figure is represented. We found an original script by Shaffer, but with dad’s annotations as director, ‘controlling’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Because he was formerly a barrister, Shaffer tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They sort of respected each other and hated each other.”

Writing the book provided some “closure”, Justin stated.

Financial Hardships

His family never benefited financially from the production, he explained: “The bloody film has gone on to make a fortune for other people. It’s beyond a joke. His father agreed to take five grand. So he never received any of the upside. The actor never received any money from it either, despite the fact he performed his role for no pay, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. Therefore, it’s been a very unkind film.”