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A screenplay written by the acclaimed writer and starring Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward should 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as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of turmoil it brought the production team has now been revealed in previously unpublished letters and early versions of the script.

The Plot of This Classic Film

This 1973 movie centers on a puritan police officer, played by Edward Woodward, who arrives on a remote Scottish island looking for a missing girl, only to encounter sinister local pagans who deny she ever existed. Britt Ekland appeared as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who tempts the God-fearing officer, with Christopher Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Creative Tensions Uncovered

However, the working environment was tense and fractious, according to the letters. In a message to the writer, the director stated: “How dare you treat me this way?”

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

Heavy edits include Summerisle’s lines in the final scene, which would have begun: “The child was only a small part – the part that showed. Don’t blame yourself, it was impossible you could have known.”

Beyond Writer and Director

Conflict escalated outside the writer and director. A producer wrote: “Shaffer’s talent was marred by excessive indulgence that drove him to show he was too clever by half.”

In a note to the production team, Hardy complained about the film’s editor, the editing specialist: “I believe he likes the subject or approach of the film … and feels that he is tired of it.”

In one letter, Christopher Lee described the film as “appealing and enigmatic”, even with “having to cope with a garrulous producer, a stressed screenwriter and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Forgotten Papers Found

An extensive correspondence about the production was among multiple bags of documents forgotten in the loft of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, his wife. There were also unpublished drafts, storyboards, on-set photographs and financial accounts, many of which show the struggles faced by the film-makers.

The director’s children his two sons, now 60 and 63, used these documents for a forthcoming book, called Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the extreme pressures on the director during the production of the film – from his heart attack to financial ruin.

Personal Consequences

At first, the movie was a box office flop and, in the aftermath the disappointment, Hardy left his spouse and his family for a fresh start in America. Legal letters show Caroline as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that he owed her as much as a large sum. She had to give up their house and passed away in 1984, aged 51, suffering from alcoholism, never knowing that her film eventually became a global hit.

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

When he was contacted by a resident living in the former family home, asking whether he wished to collect the sacks of papers, his first thought was to propose destroying “all of it”.

But then he and his stepbrother Dominic examined the bags and understood the importance of what they held.

Revelations from the Documents

His brother, an art historian, said: “All the big players is represented. We found an original script by the writer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘containing’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Because he was formerly a barrister, he tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They loved each other and hated each other.”

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

Monetary Struggles

His family never benefited monetarily from the film, he added: “This movie has gone on to make so much money for others. It’s unfair. Dad accepted a small fee. So he never received the profits. Christopher Lee also did not get any money from it either, despite the fact that he did his role for zero, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. Therefore, it was a very unkind film.”