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A screenplay crafted by Anthony Shaffer and featuring Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward should have been a dream project for filmmaker Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man over half a century ago.

Although today it is celebrated as an iconic horror film, the extent of turmoil it caused the film-makers has now been uncovered in newly discovered letters and script drafts.

The Plot of This Classic Film

This 1973 movie centers on a devout policeman, played by Edward Woodward, who travels on a remote Scottish island in search of a missing girl, only to encounter mysterious pagan residents who deny the girl was real. the actress was cast as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who tempts the God-fearing officer, with Lee as Lord Summerisle.

Creative Tensions Revealed

However, the working environment was frayed and fractious, according to the letters. In a letter to the writer, Hardy stated: “How dare you handle me like this?”

Shaffer was already famous with acclaimed works like Sleuth, but his typed draft of The Wicker Man shows the director’s harsh edits to the screenplay.

Extensive crossings-out feature Summerisle’s lines in the ending, which would have begun: “The girl was only a small part – the part that showed. Don’t blame yourself, it was impossible you could have known.”

Beyond the Creative Duo

Conflict escalated outside the main pair. A producer commented: “Shaffer’s talent has been offset by a self-indulgence that drove him to show he was too clever by half.”

In a note to the producers, the director expressed frustration about the film’s editor, the editing specialist: “I don’t think he likes the subject or style of the film … and feels that he has had enough of it.”

In a correspondence, Lee referred to the movie as “appealing and mysterious”, despite “having to cope with a garrulous producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and an overpaid and hostile director”.

Forgotten Documents Uncovered

An extensive correspondence about the film was part of six sack-loads of documents left in the attic of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, his wife. Included were unpublished drafts, visual plans, on-set photographs and budget records, many of which show the challenges faced by the film-makers.

The director’s children Justin and Dominic, currently in their sixties, used the material for an upcoming publication, called Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the intense stress on the director throughout the production of the film – from his heart attack to financial ruin.

Personal Fallout

Initially, the movie was a box office flop and, in the aftermath of its failure, Hardy abandoned his wife and their children for a fresh start in America. Legal letters reveal his wife as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that he was indebted to her up to £1m in today’s money. She was forced to give up the family home and died in 1984, aged 51, suffering from alcoholism, unaware that the project eventually became a global hit.

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

When he was contacted by a woman living in his mother’s old house, inquiring if he wanted to retrieve the sacks of papers, his first thought was to suggest 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: “Every key figure are in there. We discovered an original script by Shaffer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘controlling’ the writer’s excess. Because he was formerly a barrister, Shaffer tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They respected each other and hated each other.”

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

Financial Struggles

His family did not profit financially from the production, 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 the profits. The actor never received payment from it as well, despite the fact that he did the film for no pay, to get out of Hammer [Horror films]. So, in many ways, it’s been a very unkind film.”