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A screenplay crafted by Anthony Shaffer and featuring Christopher Lee and the lead actor was expected to be an ideal venture for director Robin Hardy during the production of The Wicker Man more than 50 years ago.

Even though today it is celebrated as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of turmoil it brought the production team has now been revealed in previously unpublished letters and early versions of the script.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 Storyline of The Wicker Man

This 1973 movie centers on a devout policeman, portrayed by Edward Woodward, who arrives on a remote Scottish island looking for a lost child, only to encounter mysterious pagan residents who claim the girl was real. the actress appeared as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who seduces the religious policeman, with Christopher Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Creative Tensions Revealed

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

The screenwriter had already made his name with acclaimed works like Sleuth, but his typed draft of The Wicker Man reveals Hardy’s brutal cuts to the screenplay.

Extensive crossings-out include Summerisle’s lines 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.”

Beyond the Creative Duo

Conflict escalated beyond the main pair. 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 producers, Hardy expressed frustration about the film’s editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I believe he likes 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 enigmatic”, despite “dealing with a talkative producer, a stressed screenwriter and an overpaid and hostile director”.

Forgotten Papers Uncovered

A large collection of letters relating to the production was part of multiple bags of documents left in the loft of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, his wife. There were also previously unseen scripts, visual plans, production photos and budget records, which show the struggles faced by the team.

The director’s children his two sons, currently in their sixties, used the material for a forthcoming book, titled Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the extreme pressures faced by the director throughout the production of the movie – from his heart attack to bankruptcy.

Personal Consequences

Initially, the movie failed commercially and, in the aftermath of its failure, the director abandoned his spouse and his family for a fresh start in America. Court documents reveal Caroline as an unacknowledged producer and that he owed her up to a large sum. She was forced to give up their house and died in 1984, aged 51, battling addiction, never knowing that the project eventually became an international success.

Justin, a Bafta-nominated historian film-maker, called The Wicker Man as “the film that messed up our family”.

When he was contacted by a resident living in his mother’s old house, asking whether he wished to retrieve the sacks of papers, his initial reaction was to suggest destroying “the bloody things”.

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

Insights from the Documents

Dominic, an art historian, said: “All the big players are in there. We found an original script by Shaffer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘containing’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Due to his legal background, Shaffer did a lot of overexplaining and dad just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They respected each other and hated each other.”

Compiling the publication provided some “resolution”, Justin stated.

Financial Hardships

The family never benefited monetarily from the film, he added: “This movie has gone on to make a fortune for other people. It’s unfair. His father agreed to take five grand. So he never received any of the upside. The actor also did not get any money from it as well, despite the fact that he did his role for no pay, to get out of Hammer [Horror films]. So, in many ways, it’s been a very unkind film.”