Below History Portion Excerpts © Copyright S.Phillips 1995. Revised 1997,1998,1999, 2001.  Nicholas Cage Portion © Copyright London Times and all rest   © Copyright R. Roberts 2001.  All rights reserved.

There can be few, if any, Pagans who have not watched or at least heard about, The Wicker Man, a low-budget little known British horror movie that really deserves a bigger audience. The Wicker Man, started out as a B-movie in 1973, but has steadily grown in reputation and has become one of the principal cult movies of the past 25 years.  In the United states it has gained its status mainly because of it's scarcity and the number of versions that were created.

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CONTENTS

The Story

History of Film Production

New Wicker Man to be filmed starring Nicholas Cage

Photos of various locations and scenes

 

 

 

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The Story

All of the action takes place on a small peaceful and rustic looking island, somewhere off the coast of Scotland.  Sgt. Howie (played by Edward Woodward, best known for The Equalizer tv series), arrives on the island of Summerisle to investigate an anonymous report of a missing girl, Rowan Morrison. When Howie arrives, he is given a cold reception, and the village people claim to have never seen the girl. However, her family name is shared by a family on the island. Howie visits them, and is surprised when the Mrs. Morrison claims to not recognize a picture of Rowan. Morrison's daughter claims the picture is of her sister, who now runs through the fields as a hare. This is enough for Howie to decide to stay the night.

Soon, Howie realizes something very strange is going on. At the Green Man (the local inn), people openly sing bawdy songs about the innkeeper's daughter Willow (Brit Ekland) while she is present. The very moral and Christian Howie is  shocked.  Then he sees people having sex out in the open, among other strange things. Howie is not even safe in his room at the inn, as Willow attempts to seduce him from the next room using song and erotic dance. It is hard to describe precisely, but it a truly memorable scene.

The next day Howie continues his investigation. He finds that Rowan did exist, and that she died a few months ago. He asks the town's teacher (who, to his sensibilities, is teaching shockingly sexual paganism to the children) if Rowan is buried in the churchyard. She's not sure how to answer that. "The building attached to the ground in which the body lies is no longer used for Christian worship, so whether it is still a churchyard is debatable," she explains.

Howie goes to the island's patriarch, Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee). Summerisle is frank and unapologetic about his paganism. It was started by his grandfather, who found that the local population responded well to the revivification of the Old Gods. In one telling exchange, Howie protests that a group of girls are dancing naked over a fire in what is a fertility rite:

Lord Summerisle: They do love their divinity lessons.

Sgt. Howie: But they are... are naked!

Lord Summerisle: Naturally! It's much too dangerous to jump through the fire with your clothes on.

Summerisle assures Howie that nothing illegal has happened, and gives him permission to exhume the body of Rowan. Howie finds nothing but the body of a rabbit.

All that has happened, plus the fact that Lord Summerisle seems keen to get rid of Howie by May Day, leads Howie to do some research into the rites of May Day. He is not prepared for the truth he discovers. 

The Wicker Man is one of the most original and unusual horror movies you will ever see. It doesn't really have any scares, only a steadily climbing sense of dread as it builds towards climax. The film also avoids the usual conventions of horror movies. For instance, most of the film takes place during the day, and there is no blood or any dismembered body parts, though there is plenty of symbolism. The horror of Summerisle is found in Lord Summerisle's benign smile and the jocular singing of the townspeople, in the dancing and garish costume wearing of the May Day celebration.

One truly standout element of the movie is the music. Paul Giovanni composed a slew of original folk songs, all bawdy and all maddeningly catchy, for the townspeople to sing. Our favorites include Brit Ekland's song of seduction, and a humorous 'circle of life' song sung to a lone fiddle while dancing around the May pole. We would almost say The Wicker Man is a horror musical, but this would invite comparison to The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies. And no one wants that.

Most of the cast is made up of unknowns, but there are some very familiar faces. If you go to the video stores to get a horror movie and ignore the movies with a number in the title, about half of the remaining films will star Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing (and sometimes both). Christopher Lee was Hammer Studios' point man on monster movies, he played Dracula in a number of films, and Frankenstein's monster on occasion. He lent his name to probably more horror movies than just about anyone else in the history of movies. Lee plays the role of the civilized heathen Summerisle subtly and with style. In other words, he fits in perfectly with the rest of the movie.

Fans of The Equalizer will probably be surprised at how strong Woodward's English accent is throughout the movie. He also seems kind of whiny and petty at times, but Woodward does an excellent job of portraying a man who is disgusted by the lifestyle he sees, yet attracted to it against his better nature.

The Wicker Man is a movie you will remember long after you have stopped watching it. That's why it's a shame that for the last twenty years, the movie was so very hard to find on video.  In the U.S. the movie had a theatrical running time 95 minutes and 87 minutes.  In the U.S. versions had a running time of 85 minutes, one a running time of 101 minutes (Magnum), and the best vesion (in our opinion) has a running time of 102 minutes (Media home Entertainment)  The difference between the various running times is made up of a combination of scenes featuring villagers' hedonism and scenes between Howie and Summerisle. 

Now there are two new versions released by Anchor Bay Entertainment, which seem to be an improvement over the old theatrical addition.  The extended edition is now 99 minutes long and the theatrical edition is now 88 minutes long.  you can buy a limited edition which contains both releases on two DVDs plus 11 minutes of rarely shown footage; You can buy a theatrical edition (88 minutes) on DVD. And, you can also purchase both editions in VCR format.   We have the 85 minute version, the 101 minute version, the 102 minute version and the new DVD Limited edition which is very well edited and extremely sharp.  Well Worth It!!!!

Whatever version you can find, though, this is a movie well worth watching and owning.

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History of Film Production

As we stated above, most collectors are aware that in addition to the new 88 and 99 minute cuts, the film circulates in a number of different versions.  There is a great deal of confusion and mis-information about the exact differences between the various prints. But first, let's find out why more than one version exists in the first place.   (The below quoted from "The Origianl Wicker man)

The Wicker Man began life in 1972 when actor Christopher Lee; Peter Snell, head of film company British Lion; and writer Anthony Shaffer formed a casual consortium and started to discuss the possibility of working on a movie project of mutual interest. Shaffer had purchased a book (nobody now remembers the title) with the idea of developing a screenplay. Eventually, it was realised that the book simply wasn't good enough to be turned into a worthwhile production. An old associate of Shaffer, small-time director Robin Hardy, who was convalescing after a heart attack, appeared on the scene and a quiet weekend was spent brainstorming some fresh ideas. During that weekend a framework was developed that was very close to the finished movie. The film would concern a battle of ideals between a devoutly-religious Scottish mainland police sergeant and the older pagan beliefs of the locals on a remote Hebridean island. The idea was that the pagan ways of the islanders would be conveyed to the audience as they followed Sergeant Neil Howie's attempts to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. The policeman would become ever more deeply embroiled in the increasingly bizarre ways of the locals, culminating in a horrifying twist-in-the-tail conclusion. The pagan details - painstakingly researched by Shaffer - were to be entirely authentic, although drawn from different societies at varying times. The whole thing was to be set to an original folk music score.

The script was presented to British Lion and received an enthusiastic reception. Lion was having its troubles at the time and thus it was asked that "the budget be kept low". Christopher Lee was cast as the island's community leader and Ingrid Pitt was signed to play the keeper of the records office. Both Lee and Pitt were stalwarts of the then highly-successful British horror genre - although the latter star was imposed on the production by British Lion's main cinema outlet, Rank.

The policeman was to be played by Edward Woodward, then riding high as TV's Callan. Diane Cilento (ex-Mrs Sean Connery, later Mrs Anthony Shaffer) was chosen for the important part of the island's school teacher. The rest of the casting was more bizarre - mime troupe leader Lindsay Kemp (later to work in films with Derek Jarman) was drafted to play the innkeeper, and Peter Snell chose Britt Ekland as the innkeeper's daughter to secure American interest. The fact that the latter could not produce a reasonable Scottish accent forced all of Ekland's dialogue to be dubbed in post-production (by Leslie Mackie, who also played Daisy) - a large flaw in the final film. Another dialogue oddity in The Wicker Man is Ingrid Pitt's unexplained East European accent!

Filming took 8 weeks in late Autumn 1972 - most of the shooting being done around the film's base of Newton Stewart, Scotland - none of the filming was actually done on an island. "Autumn" was turned into "Summer" by employing fake plastic apple trees and by decorating the real bare trees with fake blossom. Fortunately, Shaffer and Hardy had filmed some cutaway shots of trees in bloom earlier in the Summer and these shots were inserted where necessary. Locals were recruited to fill out the crowd scenes, and pupils from a ballet school helped with some of the dance routines - everybody being kept warm with industrial fan heaters. Production proceeded smoothly albeit briskly, despite the turmoil of British Lion being taken over by another company at the same time as shooting. One minor problem was encountered when some of the locals employed as extras became convinced that the crew were planning to burn some animals alive as part of the movie's climax - a reassurance from Shaffer soon calmed things down. Edward Woodward also broke a toe during one scene and due to a combination of cold, tiredness and drink didn't notice until the following morning! A few other problems were encountered with Britt Ekland who was described by the film's composer, Paul Giovanni, as having "a very limited idea of what work is".

Lion's new bosses were EMI's Barry Spikings and Michael Deeley. Neither were particularly keen on the project they found they had taken on. The film editor assigned was Eric Boyd-Perkins who rather aspired to higher things than cheap British horror films. In a climate of much argument with Snell (who was being kept on to work out his contract) and Hardy, Perkins finally assembled a cut running at 102 minutes. Whilst both Snell and Hardy were satisfied with this, Christopher Lee was not. Already about 20 minutes of filmed material had been jettisoned. The main sequence which went unused had Howie cycling to interview a mother on the island as part of his inquiries (note the redundant "Mrs Grimmond" credit on the titles at the end of the film). Much to Christopher Lee's regret, a great deal of the scene in which Lord Summerisle explains to Howie the history of the island was also removed although, to be fair, this was too wordy and over-long in its original form and would have seriously damaged the flow of the film. Quite a few other scenes were shortened, too, yet more damaging cutting was still to come...

Deeley refused to release the film, even in Britain, maintaining that it had no market value whatsoever. Snell tried hard to change Deeley's mind by promoting the film as much as possible - it was even entered in the non-competition section of the Cannes Film Festival that year, complete with a huge wicker man prop erected outside the main hotel! A parade of elderly film buyers filed in to watch it, but none were impressed.

Meanwhile, Deeley contacted Roger Corman in Hollywood and sent him a copy of the 102 minute version of the film, asking him to suggest changes to improve its marketability. Corman's suggestions were to aim the film for the American drive-in market. To facilitate this, Corman suggested that the film needed shortening and proposed about 15 minutes worth of cuts. Following this advice, Deeley cut the film down to 87 minutes without consulting anybody who had worked on the original shooting. Parts of the plot were changed around, moving some of the details of Howie's second night on the island forward to the first and deleting all of the footage of Howie on the mainland.

Despite these modifications, the film wasn't taken up by Corman for American release, though US distributors seemed initially impressed. Corman had offered $50,000 for the American rights, but British Lion wanted to recover more of the original production cost. Eventually a sum in excess of $200,000 was offered by a company called National General. Unfortunately, National General went bankrupt four days after the deal was signed. Warner Bros then took over the entire National General catalogue with the intent of asset-stripping the business. Warner's tested the film in a few areas of the USA towards the end of 1974 - earning a highly favourable review in Variety - before giving up the struggle.

Back in the UK, the path of the film had been somewhat different. Snell had secured the Nicolas Roeg movie Don't Look Now for release by British Lion some time previously and it was now entering its smaller second run in London. Deeley now saw the chance to off-load The Wicker Man as a support picture. This move would also help to fill a quota system that operated at the time forcing cinemas to show a certain amount of British films. So finally, in December 1973, The Wicker Man stumbled into release. Christopher Lee and Anthony Shaffer both telephoned all the film critics that they knew, begging them to attend the film and even offering to pay for their seats for them! Some reasonable reviews followed which resulted in the film being given a release on its own at the Odeon in Haymarket. The film appears to have never made it into the smaller provincial theatres.

Throughout the rest of the seventies and early eighties, the film's standing grew to large proportions - particularly in America where its unavailability seemed to enhance its reputation.

In Autumn 1976, Hardy was in New York working on a couple of screenplays and decided to find out what had happened to the film with a view to kicking it back into release based on the American fan/student interest in the movie. The film had now been sold by Warner's to a company called Beachhead Properties who were about to auction the rights. A small outfit called Abaxas, run by film buff Stirling Smith, purchased the film for $20,000. Hardy got in touch and explained that the film was now in a form far removed from what he, Peter Snell and Anthony Shaffer had originally planned. Hardy contacted Snell and Shaffer in London and all three began an attempt to find something longer than the 87 minute version that was in circulation.

The first obvious port of call was British Lion. Lion searched their vaults at Shepperton and reported that all they had was the 87 minute negative - the original raw location footage had been destroyed (according to rumour it was used as landfill in the nearby M4 motorway!) Attention now turned to trying to find the original 102 minute version that had been prepared. Hardy remembered the early print that had been sent to Roger Corman. A phone call soon confirmed that Corman still had the copy. A dupe was made and Hardy set about reconstructing the film for a special American release. For reasons unknown (possibly Corman's copy was incomplete), Hardy decided not to (or was unable to) reinstate certain of the extra short portions including the major initial scenes concerning Howie receiving the letter on the mainland. This version did, however, restore the original flow of events and the scenes of the first night on the island were reinstated, making a running time of about 95 minutes. This restored version was released in America in October 1977.

In Britain, the rights had passed to Warner's on the collapse of British Lion. Throughout the late seventies and early eighties the film appeared on the ITV television channel and in various home-video releases, always in its 87 minute version (the British distributors have, until recently, been ignorant of the existence of any longer version, as is the BFI). In 1988, the BBC planned to spearhead the very first film of the first Moviedrome season with a screening of the full 102 minute version which researchers claimed to have tracked down in America. The copy from America had yet to arrive when the Radio Times for that week was prepared, grandly announcing the discovery. A reel of NTSC format broadcast videotape arrived from America a week or so before the screening containing a somewhat ropey copy of the film. Realisation dawned on the Moviedrome team that what they had been sent was only the 95 minute American re-release version - not the original 102 minute version as promised! In the end, the BBC used a transfer of a British print of the 87 minute version inserting anything extra that they found on the American copy (this led to better picture-quality for the parts of the film common to both versions - the American video print would not have been of transmittable quality in its entirety). Fortunately, Alex Cox's (somewhat lukewarm) introduction to the film was recorded near enough the transmission date to explain that some scenes were still missing.

The situation is even more confused because the BBC's Wicker Man appears to run just over 92 minutes, rather than the 95m quoted for this version. Quite possibly some tiny extra snippets were "papered over" when the BBC were replacing the portions of the print that they held in superior quality, as described above. Whilst it's likely these tiny extra portions were simply those we see in the 102m version, it should be pointed out that the BBC's copy as transmitted retains a couple of images only present in this version, so it is just possible that the BBC's actions inadvertently removed other footage unique to the bona fide 95m print. Sadly, the genuine 95m copy is not otherwise available for examination.

The 102 minute version had a home-video release, but only in America. Initially on the Media Home Entertainment label, it transferred to Magnum before being deleted in c1991.  The Magnum version is 101 minutes according to the Tape Box.

To order copies of the 2001 DVD Limited Release versions of the 1973 Movie, click HERE  

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New Wicker Man was filmed and released in 2006 starring Nicholas Cage

FLASH!  The Wicker Man was remade by a Hollywood studio with Nicolas Cage in the lead role.  Hmmmm.  As all of you that have read this page so far know, the original 1973 classic ends with a Presbyterian Scottish policeman, Sght Howie, played by Edward Woodward, being burnt alive by pagans.  Wonder how this one will end.  I just can't see Nicholas being burned alive!

London Times.  2001 --  Hollywood producers transported the story across the Atlantic with Woodward's role played by Cage.   The Italian-American actor, an Oscar winner for Leaving Las Vegas, is renowned for his wild performances. His involvement in the £40m project has drawn criticism from Anthony Shaffer who wrote the original 1973 screenplay.

Shaffer claims Cage was wrong for the part of Howie, the celibate, sombre, God-fearing policeman who arrives in the fictional island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl.

"I don't think it bodes well that Cage played Woodward's part and a lot of remakes have come to grief," he said.  Shaffer said he asked to be consulted by the American studios before they forged ahead with the project. He despaired of the relocation of the plot to America.

The new version was made by Universal Studios in partnership with Saturn, Cage's own production company.  They relocated the film's plot and setting to an island off the Northeastern coast of America." (Pugent Sound).

Director and writer Neil LaBute, whose films include Nurse Betty and In The Company Of Men, is also attached to the project.  Lenny Kornberg, senior vice president of production at Universal, confirmed that The Wicker Man was on the company's roster of pictures.

"It is a recreated version of the original," he said. "Cage plays a motercycle policeman, but apart from that it won't be changed radically."   Despite Cage's enthusiasm for the original film, executives at Universal were less impressed.

"I was told it was a very remarkable film in some ways, but when I went to see it at a showing in New York I didn't think it was that good," said one executive. "However, it is a very 'remakable' film and when Nicolas Cage suddenly became interested we started to respond to it."

Ron Halpern, vice-president of French-based Canal movies, which owns the rights to the film, said: "Nicholas Cage is the ideal star for this production. He  worked very well as the Woodward character.

Canal had been searching for a suitable partner to recreate the film.

FOR A DESCRIPTION AND ORDERING THE DVD FOR THE NEW REMAKE (2006) GO TO: http://thewickermanmovie.warnerbros.com/wickerman.html

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