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A script written by the acclaimed writer and starring Christopher Lee and the lead actor was expected to be a dream project for filmmaker Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man more than 50 years ago.

Although today it is revered as an iconic horror film, the extent of misery it caused the production team has now been revealed in previously unpublished letters and script drafts.

The Plot of The Wicker Man

This 1973 movie revolves around a puritan police officer, played by the actor, who arrives on a remote Scottish island in search of a lost child, only to encounter sinister local pagans who deny the girl was real. the actress was cast as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who seduces the religious policeman, with Christopher Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Production Tensions Uncovered

But the creative atmosphere was frayed and contentious, according to the letters. In a letter to the writer, the director wrote: “How dare you handle me this way?”

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

Extensive crossings-out feature the aristocrat’s dialogue in the final scene, which would have begun: “The child was only a small part – the visible element. Don’t blame yourself, there was no way you could have known.”

Beyond Writer and Director

Tensions boiled over beyond the writer and director. One of the producers 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 expressed frustration about the editor, the editing specialist: “I believe he likes the theme or style of the picture … and thinks that he is tired of it.”

In a correspondence, Lee described the movie as “alluring and enigmatic”, despite “having to cope with a talkative producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Lost Documents Found

A large collection of letters about the film was part of multiple bags of documents forgotten in the attic of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, Caroline. There were also previously unseen scripts, storyboards, production photos and budget records, many of which reflect the challenges faced by the film-makers.

The director’s children his two sons, currently in their sixties, have drawn on these documents for an upcoming publication, called Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the extreme pressures faced by Hardy throughout the production of the movie – including a health crisis to bankruptcy.

Family Consequences

At first, the film failed commercially and, in the aftermath of its failure, Hardy left his spouse and his family for a new life in America. Court documents reveal Caroline as the film’s uncredited executive producer and that Hardy was indebted to her up to a large sum. She was forced to give up their house and passed away in the 1980s, in her fifties, battling alcoholism, never knowing that her film later turned into a global hit.

His son, an acclaimed documentary maker, described The Wicker Man as “the movie that messed up our family”.

When he was contacted by a resident who had moved into his mother’s old house, asking whether he wished to retrieve the documents, his first thought was to suggest burning “all of it”.

But afterward he and his brother examined the sacks and realised the significance of what they held.

Insights from the Papers

His brother, an art historian, commented: “All the big players are in there. We found the first draft by Shaffer, but with dad’s annotations as filmmaker, ‘containing’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Because he was formerly a barrister, Shaffer did a lot of overexplaining and his father just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They sort of loved each other and hated each other.”

Writing the book provided some “closure”, Justin stated.

Monetary Hardships

His family never benefited monetarily from the production, he explained: “The bloody film has gone on to make so much money for other people. It’s beyond a joke. His father accepted five grand. So he never received any of the upside. The actor never received payment from it either, although he performed his role for no pay, to get out of Hammer [Horror films]. So, in many ways, it’s been a very unkind film.”