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A screenplay crafted by Anthony Shaffer and featuring Christopher Lee and the lead actor could have been a dream project for filmmaker Robin Hardy while the filming of The Wicker Man more than 50 years ago.

Although it is now revered as an iconic horror film, the extent of misery it brought the film-makers has now been uncovered in previously unpublished correspondence and early versions of the script.

The Plot of This Classic Film

This 1973 movie revolves around a puritan police officer, portrayed by Edward Woodward, who travels on a remote Scottish island looking for a lost child, only to encounter sinister local pagans who deny the girl was real. Britt Ekland was cast as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who tempts the God-fearing officer, with Christopher Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Production Tensions Uncovered

But the creative atmosphere was frayed and fractious, according to the letters. In a letter to the writer, the director stated: “How could you treat me this way?”

The screenwriter was already famous with masterpieces like Sleuth, but his typed draft of The Wicker Man reveals the director’s harsh edits to the screenplay.

Heavy edits feature the aristocrat’s dialogue in the ending, which would have begun: “The child was only a small part – the part that showed. Don’t blame yourself, there was no way you could have known.”

Apart from Writer and Director

Tensions boiled over outside the writer and director. One of the producers commented: “Shaffer’s talent has been offset by a self-indulgence that impels him to prove himself overly smart.”

In a note to the production team, Hardy expressed frustration about the film’s editor, the editing specialist: “I believe he appreciates the theme or style of the picture … and feels that he has had enough of it.”

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

Forgotten Documents Uncovered

A large collection of letters relating to the production was among multiple bags of papers left in the loft of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, Caroline. Included were previously unseen scripts, storyboards, production photos and financial accounts, many of which show the struggles experienced by the team.

The director’s children Justin and Dominic, currently in their sixties, have drawn on these documents for an upcoming publication, titled Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the intense stress faced by the director during the making of the movie – from his heart attack to bankruptcy.

Personal Fallout

At first, the film failed commercially and, following the disappointment, the director left his wife and his family for a fresh start in the US. Court documents show his wife as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that Hardy was indebted to her up to a large sum. She was forced to give up the family home and passed away in the 1980s, in her fifties, battling alcoholism, never knowing that her film later turned into a global hit.

His son, an acclaimed documentary maker, described The Wicker Man as “the film that messed up my family”.

When he was contacted by a woman living in his mother’s old house, inquiring if he wished to retrieve the documents, his first thought was to propose burning “the bloody things”.

But afterward he and his brother examined the sacks and understood the significance of what they held.

Insights from the Papers

Dominic, an art historian, commented: “All the big players are in there. We found an original script by the writer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘controlling’ the writer’s excess. Because he was formerly a barrister, he tended to overwrite and his father just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They loved each other and clashed frequently.”

Writing the book provided some “resolution”, Justin said.

Financial Hardships

The family never benefited financially from the film, he explained: “This movie has gone on to make so much money for other people. It’s unfair. Dad agreed to take five grand. So he never received any of the upside. Christopher Lee also did not get any money from it either, although that he did the film for zero, to leave his previous studio. Therefore, it was a very unkind film.”