The Wicker Man (1973)

The setup

A police sergeant on the Scottish mainland receives an anonymous letter about a missing girl on the remote island of Summerisle. A strict, churchgoing man, he flies there to investigate and finds that the islanders are friendly, musical and quite certain that no girl is missing. Their customs, their songs and their view of the world conflict with everything he believes, and the search for the child becomes a contest between two ways of seeing life.

Context

The Wicker Man grew out of a meeting between actor Christopher Lee and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer in 1971, when the two agreed to make a film together. Producer Peter Snell and director Robin Hardy joined, and the team wanted a horror picture about an old religion, set apart from the Gothic films that Hammer was making at the time. Shaffer wanted a horror story that was a little more literate than usual, with little gore. The starting point was David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual, which Shaffer and Lee bought for £15,000. Shaffer found a direct adaptation unworkable and wrote a story that borrows only loosely from the book.

The image of the giant wicker figure comes from Julius Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars, and Shaffer drew on James Frazer's anthropological study The Golden Bough. The film was made for the British Lion company at a moment when it was in trouble. A new owner needed a quick production to reassure the unions, which pushed the film into the cold months. Shooting began in October 1972, but the story takes place in spring, so the crew glued artificial blossoms and leaves to bare trees. Reported budget figures run from about £471,600 to £500,000, depending on the source.

Why it matters

For many viewers the film is the point at which folk horror found its clearest form. The British Film Institute groups it with Witchfinder General (1968) and The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) as a so-called unholy trinity, and the film's sunlit fields, folk songs and May Day rituals have been borrowed ever since. Its influence is traced to the television comedy The League of Gentlemen and to Ari Aster's Midsommar (2019). The wider tradition is described in the folk horror entry.

It is also unusual for the way it organizes fear. There is no stalking figure in the shadows and few scares in the usual sense. Instead the film sets a man of rigid belief against a society that does not share his rules and then lets the audience wonder who is the more reasonable. That structure, a mystery that doubles as a debate, gives the film its staying power and makes it a favorite of people who rarely watch horror.

Finally, the film has a legend of its own. It was cut, shelved, rediscovered and restored in several forms, and the story of its versions has become part of how it is discussed. Few films have had so many different lengths in circulation.

What to look for

• Folk songs sung by the islanders as part of the plot, not as background decoration, with a score by Paul Giovanni performed by the group Magnet.
• A daylit, cheerful setting of gardens, orchards and seaside views, in which the horror comes from the unembarrassed way people behave.
• Edward Woodward as a pious investigator whose certainty is both his strength and his weakness.
• Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, a charming and unhurried leader who treats the island's customs as a serious program.
• A structure built like a detective story, in which each clue sheds light on both the missing child and the community.
• A cast of British screen veterans, including Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and Lindsay Kemp.

Writing and casting

David Pinner first wrote Ritual as a treatment for director Michael Winner, who did not take it up, and it was then published as a novel. Shaffer's script kept the idea of a policeman visiting a place where he does not understand the rules, but moved the setting to a Scottish island and shaped a different plot. The tone is closer to a mystery than to the Hammer pictures that influenced the producers' ambitions.

Woodward was cast after Michael York and David Hemmings turned the part down. Shaffer persuaded Diane Cilento, who had stepped back from acting, to return after seeing her on stage. Britt Ekland's speaking and singing voices were dubbed by other performers, Annie Ross and Rachel Verney, and body doubles were used in her scenes involving nudity. Lee, a long-time horror star, took the part of Lord Summerisle and later said he considered it the best film he made.

Making it in Scotland

Most of the film was shot in Galloway, in the southwest of Scotland, with locations including Stranraer, Gatehouse of Fleet, Newton Stewart, Kirkcudbright, Anwoth, Creetown and the Isle of Whithorn. Plockton on the Highland coast also appears, and the island's grand house is Culzean Castle in Ayrshire. The opening aerial views of the island were filmed on Skye, near the Storr and the Quiraing, and the plane that carries the sergeant is a Thurston Teal seaplane. Cave scenes were shot at Wookey Hole in Somerset, and the orchards were filmed in Kent. Coastal scenes were filmed near St Ninian's Cave and Burrow Head in Wigtownshire.

Because filming took place in autumn, the production fought the season. Crew members attached artificial leaves and blossoms to the trees to suggest spring. The effect gives many shots a slightly unreal brightness, which suits a story about a place that has been arranged with care. The production schedule was tight, since the studio needed the film to be made quickly.

The songs

Paul Giovanni arranged, recorded and partly wrote the music, which is performed by the folk-rock group Magnet, credited in some versions as Lodestone. The soundtrack has thirteen songs, many of them sung on screen by characters. Some are traditional pieces, some were written by Giovanni in the style of collected folk material, and one is the nursery rhyme Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. Robert Burns's Corn Riggs plays over the sergeant's arrival.

The music does a job that a conventional score could not. It makes the islanders sound warm and at ease, and it reveals their beliefs without a long speech. It has also had a long life of its own. Willow's Song was covered by the group Nature and Organisation with Rose McDowall in 1994, and a Sneaker Pimps song, How Do, drew on it in 1996. A music festival called the Wickerman ran at Dundrennan from 2001 to 2015, named after the film.

Cut down and sent out

The release did not go well. After a takeover at British Lion, the film was shelved for a time. A trade screening was held on December 3, 1973, and the film reached British cinemas as the second feature beneath Don't Look Now. By then it had been cut to about 87 or 88 minutes, and the sources agree that Hardy and the other filmmakers were not involved. Hardy later said the shortened version did not make narrative sense because key scenes were missing.

A longer version went to Roger Corman, the American producer, whose offer of $50,000 for United States rights was declined, and Corman reportedly advised trimming about thirteen more minutes. Warner Bros. held American rights and test-marketed the film at drive-ins around Atlanta in May 1974. Later the rights passed to Abraxas, and the film reached American audiences at screenings in several cities from late 1977, followed by a run at San Francisco's Castro Theatre in January 1979 and a four-month engagement at the Lumiere.

The lost original and the versions

Accounts differ on the length of the cut that Hardy approved, with sources giving about 100 minutes. That version is lost. The popular story is that negative trims stored at Shepperton Studios were thrown away and used as landfill for a motorway, which writers usually name as the M4. Writers who repeat the story generally treat it as unconfirmed, and Hardy has said that fragments keep turning up. Lee believed material survived in unlabeled cans. The only negative left was that of the shorter theatrical version.

Several versions have circulated since. A 99-minute copy based on the Corman print has long been known from poor-quality video. In 1979 Hardy rebuilt a version from that print, restoring narrative structure and some sensual material. In 2001 a Director's Cut of about 99 minutes combined footage from the theatrical negative with scenes from worn prints, with the weaker sound that came with them, because the original soundtracks had disappeared with the negative. A remastered 88-minute theatrical version was released the same year.

The Final Cut

In 2013, for the film's fortieth anniversary, the company StudioCanal launched a worldwide appeal for missing film materials, backed by Hardy. The search turned up a 35mm release print at the Harvard Film Archive. It was scanned, and Hardy examined it in London and confirmed that it matched the version he had assembled for the American distributor in 1979. Silver Salt Restoration in the UK spent hundreds of hours repairing the negative and cleaning the picture, and a second-generation intermediate print from 1973 was used to replace a short stretch that was beyond repair.

The Final Cut reached British cinemas in September 2013, and a Blu-ray release followed on October 14. Its running time is given as about 92 minutes in press reports, with other listings giving 91 to 95. One reviewer noted that it introduces Lord Summerisle earlier than the shorter cut does, making the story more balanced. For the 50th anniversary in 2023, StudioCanal released all three versions, the Theatrical Cut, the Director's Cut and the Final Cut, in 4K restorations. Anyone choosing a first version should consider the Final Cut.

Reception and reputation

Early reviews were mixed. The Monthly Film Bulletin called it an immensely enjoyable piece of hokum, Variety praised Shaffer's screenplay, and the New York Times review by Janet Maslin was more negative. The film won the Golden Licorn for best film at the Paris festival of fantastic and science-fiction film in 1974. In 1977 the magazine Cinefantastique devoted a special issue to it and called it the Citizen Kane of horror movies, a phrase that has followed it since.

The decades since have been kind. At the 6th Saturn Awards in 1979 it won Best Horror Film, with nominations for Lee, Hardy, Shaffer and Giovanni. Total Film ranked it sixth among British films in 2004, and The Guardian placed it fourth among horror films in 2010. Rotten Tomatoes lists it above 90 percent, and Metacritic shows a score of about 87, though such figures change. A 2003 conference at the University of Glasgow's Crichton Campus led to two collections of essays.

Reading the film

The story is usually read as a clash of faiths. The sergeant is a devout Christian who regards the islanders' customs as obscene. The islanders have a worldview that connects growth, fertility and the calendar to an agreement with the land. The film gives both sides arguments and manners, and most viewers find that sympathy for one side shifts as the plot goes on. For a related example of a tightly knit community whose beliefs shape the story, see the supernatural shelf of the library.

Another reading looks at the film as a product of its decade, when the old Christian order and newer ideas about freedom were openly at odds in British culture. The island's cheerful openness about sex is both an attraction and a source of the sergeant's disgust. Because Hardy and Shaffer present all this with a straight face, the film can be taken as satire, as a mystery, as a horror story or as a study of belief, and it supports each reading in turn.

Afterlife and how to approach it

A novelization by Hardy and Shaffer appeared in 1978. Neil LaBute directed an American remake in 2006 with Nicolas Cage, set in the Pacific Northwest, which was poorly received. Hardy directed a spiritual successor, The Wicker Tree (2011), based on his own novel. He died on July 1, 2016. In 2023 Titan Books published John Walsh's official story of the film, and the Hardy family's documentary Wikermania! examined its afterlife.

Within this library the natural neighbors are The Exorcist, released in the same year and also built on a clash of belief, and The Blair Witch Project, where an old legend and a remote landscape take over from the characters. The film itself rewards a second viewing, when the early scenes look very different.

Verified details

• The 1967 novel Ritual by David Pinner inspired the story; Shaffer and Lee paid £15,000 for the rights.
• Principal photography began in October 1972, even though the story is set in spring.
• The soundtrack has thirteen songs, performed by the group Magnet and arranged by Paul Giovanni.
• The island's grand house is Culzean Castle in Ayrshire.
• The theatrical cut played as the second feature with Don't Look Now in 1973.
• A trade screening took place on December 3, 1973.
• The film won the Golden Licorn at the 1974 Paris festival of fantastic and science-fiction film.
• The 2013 Final Cut was assembled with the help of a 35mm print found at the Harvard Film Archive.
• StudioCanal released the Theatrical Cut, Director's Cut and Final Cut as 4K restorations for the 50th anniversary in 2023.
• Robin Hardy directed a spiritual successor, The Wicker Tree, in 2011.

Connections

• Subgenre: Folk Horror.

Sources and further reading

• The Wicker Man (1973 film), Wikipedia
• The Search for The Wicker Man Begins, Love Horror
• The Wicker Man: The Final Cut review, Horror DNA
• The Wicker Man, Vintage Classics Film
• Wicker Man 1973 Blu-ray, Silver Sirens