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A screenplay penned by Anthony Shaffer and featuring Christopher Lee and the lead actor could have been a dream project for director Robin Hardy while the filming of The Wicker Man more than 50 years ago.

Even though it is now celebrated as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of misery it caused the production team has now been uncovered in previously unpublished letters and early versions of the script.

The Plot of The Wicker Man

This 1973 movie revolves around a puritan police officer, played by the actor, who travels on a remote Scottish island in search of a missing girl, but finds mysterious pagan residents who deny the girl was real. the actress was cast as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who tempts the God-fearing officer, with Christopher Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Creative Conflict Revealed

But the creative atmosphere was tense and fractious, according to the letters. In a message to the writer, Hardy stated: “How dare 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 shows Hardy’s brutal cuts to the screenplay.

Heavy edits include Summerisle’s lines in the final scene, originally starting: “The girl was but the tip of the iceberg – the visible element. Do not reproach yourself, it was impossible you could have known.”

Beyond Writer and Director

Tensions boiled over beyond the main pair. A producer wrote: “Shaffer’s talent was marred by a self-indulgence that drove him to prove himself too clever by half.”

In a letter to the producers, the director complained about the film’s editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I believe he appreciates the theme or approach of the picture … and thinks that he is tired of it.”

In a correspondence, Christopher Lee described the movie as “appealing and mysterious”, even with “dealing with a garrulous producer, a stressed screenwriter and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Lost Papers Uncovered

A large collection of letters about the film was among multiple bags of documents left in the attic of the old house of the director’s spouse, Caroline. Included were previously unseen scripts, storyboards, production photos and financial accounts, 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 during the making of the film – from his heart attack to bankruptcy.

Family Fallout

Initially, the movie failed commercially and, in the aftermath the disappointment, the director left his wife and their children for a new life in the US. Court documents show Caroline as an unacknowledged producer and that he owed her up to a large sum. She was forced to sell their house and died in 1984, aged 51, suffering from alcoholism, unaware that the project eventually became a global hit.

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

When someone reached out by a resident living in his mother’s old house, inquiring if he wished to retrieve the documents, his initial reaction was to propose burning “the bloody things”.

But afterward he and his brother examined the bags and realised the significance of their contents.

Insights from the Papers

His brother, an art historian, said: “All the big players are in there. We found the first draft by Shaffer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘controlling’ the writer’s excess. Because he was formerly a barrister, 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 “resolution”, the son stated.

Monetary Hardships

His family never benefited monetarily from the production, he explained: “The bloody film earned so much money for other people. It’s unfair. His father agreed to take five grand. Thus, he missed out on the profits. The actor also did not get payment from it either, despite the fact that he did the film for no pay, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. So, in many ways, it’s been a very unkind film.”