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A script penned by Anthony Shaffer and starring Christopher Lee and the lead actor was expected to be a dream project for director Robin Hardy while the filming of The Wicker Man more than 50 years ago.

Although it is now celebrated as an iconic horror film, the degree of turmoil it caused the production team has now been revealed in previously unpublished letters and early versions of the script.

The Plot of The Wicker Man

The 1973 film revolves around a puritan police officer, portrayed by Edward Woodward, who travels on an isolated Scottish isle looking for a lost child, but finds mysterious pagan residents who claim the girl was real. Britt Ekland appeared as the daughter of a local innkeeper, who tempts the religious policeman, with Christopher Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Production Conflict Uncovered

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

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

Extensive crossings-out include the aristocrat’s dialogue in the final scene, which would have begun: “The child was only a small part – the part that showed. Do not reproach yourself, it was impossible for you to know.”

Beyond the Creative Duo

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

In a letter to the production team, Hardy expressed frustration about the film’s editor, the editing specialist: “I don’t think he appreciates the subject or style of the picture … and feels that he has had enough of it.”

In one letter, Christopher Lee described the film as “appealing and mysterious”, even with “dealing with a talkative producer, a stressed screenwriter and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Lost Documents Found

An extensive correspondence relating to the film was among six sack-loads of documents forgotten in the attic of the old house of the director’s spouse, his wife. There were also unpublished drafts, storyboards, production photos and budget records, which show the challenges experienced by the team.

The director’s children Justin and Dominic, now 60 and 63, have drawn on the material for an upcoming publication, called Children of The Wicker Man. It reveals the extreme pressures on Hardy throughout the making of the movie – from his heart attack to bankruptcy.

Personal Fallout

At first, the film failed commercially and, in the aftermath the disappointment, Hardy left his spouse and their children for a fresh start in America. Court documents reveal Caroline as an unacknowledged producer and that Hardy was indebted to her up to a large sum. She had to give up their house and died in 1984, in her fifties, battling alcoholism, unaware that the project later turned into an international success.

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

When someone reached out by a woman living in the former family home, asking whether he wanted to collect the documents, his initial reaction was to suggest burning “all of it”.

But afterward he and his brother opened up the sacks and understood the significance of their contents.

Revelations from the Papers

Dominic, a scholar, said: “All the big players are in there. We found the first draft by the writer, but with dad’s annotations as filmmaker, ‘controlling’ the writer’s excess. Due to his legal background, he tended to overwrite and dad just went ‘cut, cut, cut’. They sort of loved each other and clashed frequently.”

Compiling the publication provided some “resolution”, the son said.

Monetary Struggles

His family did not profit monetarily from the production, he added: “The bloody film has gone on to make a fortune for other people. It’s unfair. Dad accepted five grand. So he never received the profits. The actor never received payment from it as well, although that he did his role for no pay, to leave his previous studio. So, in many ways, it’s been a very unkind film.”