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A script crafted by the acclaimed writer and starring Christopher Lee and the lead actor could have been an ideal venture for filmmaker Robin Hardy during the production of The Wicker Man over 50 years ago.

Even though it is now revered as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of turmoil it caused the production team has now been revealed in newly discovered correspondence and early versions of the script.

The Plot of The Wicker Man

The 1973 film revolves around a puritan police officer, portrayed by the actor, who travels on an isolated Scottish isle in search of a lost child, but finds sinister local pagans who deny the girl was real. the actress appeared as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who tempts the God-fearing officer, with Lee as Lord Summerisle.

Production Conflict Uncovered

But the creative atmosphere was frayed and contentious, the documents show. In a letter to Shaffer, Hardy wrote: “How dare you handle me this way?”

Shaffer was already famous with masterpieces like Sleuth, but his typed draft of The Wicker Man shows Hardy’s brutal cuts to the screenplay.

Extensive crossings-out feature Summerisle’s lines in the final scene, which would have begun: “The girl was but the tip of the iceberg – the part that showed. Do not reproach yourself, there was no way you could have known.”

Beyond the Creative Duo

Conflict escalated outside the main pair. One of the producers wrote: “The writer’s skill was marred by a self-indulgence that drove him to show he was overly smart.”

In a letter to the production team, the director complained about the film’s editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I believe he appreciates the subject or approach of the film … and thinks that he has had enough of it.”

In a correspondence, Christopher Lee described the film as “appealing and mysterious”, despite “having to cope with a talkative producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Forgotten Documents Uncovered

An extensive correspondence relating to the film was among six sack-loads of papers forgotten in the loft of the old house of the director’s spouse, Caroline. There were also previously unseen scripts, visual plans, on-set photographs and financial accounts, many of which reflect the challenges faced by the film-makers.

Hardy’s sons Justin and Dominic, currently in their sixties, have drawn on these documents for an upcoming publication, titled Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the extreme pressures faced by Hardy during the production of the movie – including a health crisis to financial ruin.

Personal Consequences

At first, the movie failed commercially and, following of its failure, the director left his spouse and their children for a fresh start in the US. Court documents reveal Caroline as an unacknowledged producer and that Hardy was indebted to her up to £1m in today’s money. She was forced to give up the family home and died in 1984, in her fifties, suffering from addiction, unaware that her film later turned into an international success.

Justin, an acclaimed documentary maker, called The Wicker Man as “the movie that messed up our family”.

When someone reached out by a resident who had moved into his mother’s old house, inquiring if he wanted to retrieve the documents, his initial reaction was to propose destroying “the bloody things”.

But afterward he and his stepbrother Dominic opened up the bags and realised the significance of what they held.

Insights from the Documents

Dominic, an art historian, commented: “All the big players is represented. We found an original script by the writer, but with dad’s annotations as filmmaker, ‘containing’ the writer’s excess. Because he was formerly a barrister, he did a lot of overexplaining and dad just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They sort of respected each other and hated each other.”

Writing the book has brought some “resolution”, the son stated.

Monetary Hardships

The family did not profit monetarily from the film, he explained: “This movie earned so much money for others. It’s unfair. His father accepted a small fee. So he never received any of the upside. The actor never received payment from it either, although he performed his role for zero, to get out of Hammer [Horror films]. Therefore, it was a very unkind film.”