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A script penned by Anthony Shaffer and starring Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward should have been a dream project for filmmaker Robin Hardy while the production of The Wicker Man more than 50 years ago.

Even though it is now celebrated as a cult horror masterpiece, the extent of turmoil it caused the film-makers is now uncovered in newly discovered correspondence and script drafts.

The Plot of This Classic Film

This 1973 movie centers on a puritan police officer, portrayed by the actor, who arrives on a remote Scottish island looking for a missing girl, but finds mysterious pagan residents who deny she ever existed. the actress appeared as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who tempts the religious policeman, with Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Production Conflict Revealed

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

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

Extensive crossings-out feature Summerisle’s lines in the ending, originally starting: “The child was only a small part – the part that showed. Do not reproach yourself, it was impossible you could have known.”

Beyond the Creative Duo

Conflict escalated outside the main pair. One of the producers wrote: “The writer’s skill has been offset by a self-indulgence that impels him to prove himself too clever by half.”

In a letter to the production team, the director complained about the editor, the editing specialist: “I believe he likes the theme or style of the film … and feels that he is tired of it.”

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

Lost Papers Uncovered

A large collection of letters relating to the film was part of six sack-loads of documents forgotten in the attic of the former home of the director’s spouse, Caroline. Included were unpublished drafts, storyboards, on-set photographs and financial accounts, many of which reflect the challenges faced by the film-makers.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, used these documents for a forthcoming book, called Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the extreme pressures faced by Hardy throughout the making of the film – including a health crisis to bankruptcy.

Family Consequences

At first, the movie was a box office flop and, following of its failure, the director abandoned his spouse and their children for a new life in the US. Court documents show his wife as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that he was indebted to her as much as a large sum. She had to sell their house and passed away in the 1980s, in her fifties, battling alcoholism, unaware that the project eventually became an international success.

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

When he was contacted by a woman living in the former family home, asking whether he wanted to retrieve the documents, his initial reaction was to suggest destroying “the bloody things”.

But afterward he and his stepbrother Dominic examined the bags and realised the importance of what they held.

Revelations from the Papers

His brother, a scholar, commented: “All the big players are in there. We discovered the first draft by Shaffer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘controlling’ the writer’s excess. Due to his legal background, Shaffer did a lot of overexplaining and dad just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They loved each other and hated each other.”

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

Financial Struggles

His family never benefited financially from the film, he added: “The bloody film has gone on to make so much money for others. It’s unfair. Dad agreed to take a small fee. Thus, he missed out on the profits. The actor never received any money from it either, although he performed his role for zero, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. Therefore, it’s been a very unkind film.”