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A screenplay crafted by Anthony Shaffer and starring Christopher Lee and the lead actor should have been a dream project for filmmaker Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man more than half a century ago.

Even though it is now revered as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of misery it caused the film-makers has now been revealed in previously unpublished correspondence and script drafts.

The Storyline of The Wicker Man

This 1973 movie centers on a devout policeman, played by the actor, who arrives on an isolated Scottish isle in search of a missing girl, but finds sinister local pagans who deny she ever existed. the actress was cast as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who seduces the religious policeman, with Christopher Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Creative Tensions Revealed

However, the working environment was frayed and contentious, according to the letters. In a message to Shaffer, Hardy stated: “How dare you handle me this way?”

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.

Heavy edits feature the aristocrat’s dialogue in the ending, originally starting: “The girl was only a small part – the visible element. Don’t blame yourself, it was impossible for you to know.”

Apart from the Creative Duo

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

In a letter to the producers, the director complained about the film’s editor, the editing specialist: “I don’t think he appreciates the theme or approach of the film … and thinks that he has had enough of it.”

In one letter, Christopher Lee referred to the film as “alluring and mysterious”, even with “having to cope with a talkative producer, a stressed screenwriter and an overpaid and hostile director”.

Forgotten Documents Uncovered

A large collection of letters about the film was part of six sack-loads of papers forgotten in the attic of the old house of the director’s spouse, Caroline. There were also previously unseen scripts, visual plans, production photos and financial accounts, which show the challenges experienced by the film-makers.

The director’s children Justin and Dominic, currently in their sixties, used the material for a forthcoming book, titled Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the intense stress faced by the director 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 wife and his family for a fresh start in the US. Legal letters show Caroline as an unacknowledged producer and that Hardy was indebted to her up to a large sum. She had to sell the family home and died in the 1980s, in her fifties, suffering from alcoholism, unaware that the project eventually became an international success.

Justin, an acclaimed documentary maker, described The Wicker Man as “the movie that ruined our family”.

When he was contacted by a woman who had moved into his mother’s old house, asking whether he wanted to retrieve the sacks of papers, his first thought was to suggest destroying “all of it”.

But afterward he and his brother opened up the bags and understood the significance of their contents.

Insights from the Documents

Dominic, a scholar, commented: “All the big players are in there. We found an original script by the writer, but with his father’s notes as filmmaker, ‘containing’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Due to his legal background, he tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They sort of respected each other and hated each other.”

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

Financial Struggles

His family did not profit financially from the film, he added: “The bloody film has gone on to make so much money for other people. It’s beyond a joke. His father agreed to take a small fee. So he never received any of the upside. Christopher Lee also did not get any money from it as well, despite the fact he performed the film for no pay, to get out of his previous studio. Therefore, it’s been a harsh experience.”