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A script penned by the acclaimed writer and featuring Christopher Lee and the lead actor was expected to be an ideal venture for director Robin Hardy while the production of The Wicker Man over half a century ago.

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

The Storyline of This Classic Film

This 1973 movie centers on a puritan police officer, played by the actor, who travels on a remote Scottish island in search of a lost child, only to encounter mysterious pagan residents who deny the girl was real. Britt Ekland was cast as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who seduces the God-fearing officer, with Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Creative Tensions Uncovered

But the creative atmosphere was tense and fractious, the documents show. In a message to Shaffer, Hardy wrote: “How could you handle me this way?”

Shaffer had already made his name with masterpieces like Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man reveals Hardy’s brutal cuts to his work.

Heavy edits feature the aristocrat’s dialogue in the final scene, which would have begun: “The girl was only a small part – the part that showed. Do not reproach yourself, there was no way you could have known.”

Apart from the Creative Duo

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

In a note to the producers, the director complained about the film’s editor, the editing specialist: “I believe he likes the subject or style of the film … and feels that he is tired of it.”

In a correspondence, Lee described the movie as “appealing and enigmatic”, despite “dealing with a garrulous producer, an underpaid and harassed writer and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Lost Documents Uncovered

An extensive correspondence about the film was among six sack-loads of papers forgotten in the loft of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, his wife. Included were unpublished drafts, visual plans, on-set photographs and budget records, which reflect the struggles experienced by the team.

The director’s children his two sons, currently in their sixties, have drawn on the material for a forthcoming book, called Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the extreme pressures faced by Hardy during the production of the film – including a health crisis to financial ruin.

Family Consequences

At first, the film was a box office flop and, following the disappointment, Hardy left his wife and their children for a new life in America. Court documents reveal his wife as an unacknowledged producer and that Hardy owed her up to £1m in today’s money. She was forced to give up the family home and passed away in 1984, aged 51, battling addiction, unaware that the project eventually became 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 the former family home, asking whether he wanted to retrieve the sacks of papers, his first thought was to suggest destroying “all of it”.

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

Insights from the Documents

His brother, an art historian, commented: “All the big players are in there. We found the first draft by the writer, but with dad’s annotations as director, ‘containing’ the writer’s excess. Due to his legal background, he did a lot of overexplaining and dad just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They sort of respected each other and clashed frequently.”

Writing the book has brought some “closure”, the son said.

Financial Hardships

The family did not profit financially from the production, he added: “This movie earned so much money for other people. It’s unfair. His father agreed to take a small fee. Thus, he missed out on the profits. Christopher Lee never received payment from it either, although that he did his role for zero, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. So, in many ways, it’s been a very unkind film.”