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A screenplay crafted by the acclaimed writer and starring Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward was expected to be an ideal venture for filmmaker Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man over 50 years ago.

Although today it is celebrated as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of misery it brought the production team is now uncovered in newly discovered correspondence and script drafts.

The Storyline of This Classic Film

The 1973 film centers on a devout policeman, portrayed by Edward Woodward, who arrives on a remote Scottish island looking for a lost child, only to encounter sinister local pagans who deny she ever existed. Britt Ekland was cast as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who tempts the religious policeman, with Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle.

Creative Tensions Uncovered

However, the working environment was frayed and fractious, according to the letters. In a letter to Shaffer, the director wrote: “How could you handle me this way?”

Shaffer had already made his name with acclaimed works like Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man shows the director’s harsh edits to his work.

Extensive crossings-out include Summerisle’s lines in the ending, which would have begun: “The child was but the tip of the iceberg – the visible element. Don’t blame yourself, there was no way you could have known.”

Apart from Writer and Director

Tensions boiled over outside the main pair. One of the producers wrote: “Shaffer’s talent was marred by excessive indulgence that impels him to show he was overly smart.”

In a letter to the production team, the director expressed frustration about the film’s editor, the editing specialist: “I don’t think he appreciates the subject or style of the picture … and thinks that he is tired of it.”

In one letter, Lee described the film as “appealing and mysterious”, despite “dealing with a talkative producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and an overpaid and hostile director”.

Lost Documents Uncovered

An extensive correspondence relating to the film was among six sack-loads of documents left in the loft of the former home of Hardy’s third wife, his wife. Included were previously unseen scripts, visual plans, on-set photographs and budget records, many of which reflect the struggles experienced by the film-makers.

Hardy’s sons his two sons, currently in their sixties, have drawn on these documents for an upcoming publication, titled Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the intense stress on Hardy throughout the production of the film – including a health crisis to bankruptcy.

Personal Fallout

Initially, the movie failed commercially and, following of its failure, Hardy abandoned his spouse and their children for a fresh start in the US. Court documents show his wife as an unacknowledged producer and that Hardy was indebted to her as much as £1m in today’s money. She was forced to sell their house and passed away in the 1980s, in her fifties, battling addiction, unaware that the project later turned into an international success.

His son, a Bafta-nominated historian film-maker, described The Wicker Man as “the movie that ruined my family”.

When he was contacted by a resident who had moved into the former family home, asking whether he wanted to collect the documents, his initial reaction was to suggest burning “all of it”.

But then he and his stepbrother Dominic opened up the sacks and understood the importance of their contents.

Revelations from the Documents

His brother, an art historian, commented: “Every key figure are in there. We found an original script by Shaffer, but with his father’s notes as filmmaker, ‘containing’ the writer’s excess. Due to his legal background, Shaffer tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They sort of loved each other and hated each other.”

Compiling the publication has brought some “closure”, the son said.

Monetary Struggles

His family never benefited financially from the film, he added: “The bloody film has gone on to make so much money for other people. It’s unfair. Dad accepted five grand. So he never received the profits. The actor never received any money from it as well, although that he did his role for zero, to get out of Hammer [Horror films]. Therefore, it was a harsh experience.”