The Wicker Man (1973)
"Come. It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man..."
Funny, isn’t it, how tastes change? Back in the ‘80s, The Wicker Man (1973) regularly made the ‘worst films of all time’ list, along with the box-office disaster Heaven’s Gate (1980) and the deeply amusing Trog (1970)— in which Joan Crawford hunts down the Missing Link (actually a professional wrestler in a monkey suit, a left-over from 2001: A Space Odyssey)— a troglodyte escaped from a research laboratory in the Home Counties. I remember watching The Wicker Man for the first time at university when it was shown on television in the mid-80s— to be met with howls of derision from my fellow undergraduates— fool them, for the tide was turning. The Wicker Man, Witchfinder General (1968) (our very first post on Luke Honey’s WEEKEND FLICKS.), and The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) are now considered a sacred triumvirate in the fashionable British folk-horror canon. Film buffs can’t get enough of them.
The Wicker Man defies definition. Part horror, part mystery, part musical, and directed by a first-timer (the television director and adman Robin Hardy), it was shown originally as the B movie in a double bill with Nicolas Roeg’s masterpiece, Don’t Look Now (1973)—a superb film we will most definitely return to at a later time. Shaffer’s script is based on dodgy folklore, then fashionable in the 60s and 70s, so often the basis for the pop-exploitation occult paperbacks published by the likes of the New English Library: Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1890-1915), Margaret Murray’s The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) and Robert Graves’ The White Goddess (1948): all fascinating, influential works, well worth reading, but these days disowned by serious academics, anthropologists and folklorists. Take the Druids. Did they really burn criminals alive in giant ‘wicker men’? Isn’t this, actually, Roman propaganda, based on a single sentence in Caesar’s Gallic Wars?
Not that it matters, as 20th century folk-paganism has become part of the English or British tradition. Our national identity. What was that juicy statistic? In 1911, 90% of the English population lived in towns or suburbs? Something like that. This explains why the Arts & Crafts movement became a significant force in late 19th and early 20th century Britain.
To some extent, it’s also a townie’s obsession with the countryside, which also explains Laura Ashley, Country Life magazine (actually read by Londoners) and twee programmes such as Springwatch, Countryfile, and that urban antithesis, Clarkson’s Farm. During the 1920s and 30s, motor cars became more affordable (a rival to the charabanc). With a Betjeman’s Shell Guide in the glove compartment, a happy weekend might be spent exploring the half-timbered tea rooms, antique shops and antiquarian sites of Olde Kent or Sussex. All very jolly. Or was it? Hand in hand with the delphiniums and the homemade jam came the sense that something ancient and mysterious lurked amongst Stephen Spender’s new electricity pylons. From the paganism of The Wind in the Willows (1908) to the dystopian weirdness of The Changes (1975), the children’s television series in which a weird noise emanating from machines turns sensible grown-ups into tech-smashing Luddites, there’s a sense that there— out there in the deepest countryside, lurking in remote villages, coppices and lonely, sunken lanes, there’s somethin’ nasty in the woodshed. Or certainly witchcraft. In Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse (1961), recently televised in 2020, a sophisticated London antiques dealer played by Mister Mumble, aka Rufus Sewell, investigates witchy goings on in Much Deeping (a bucolic village in Dorset) and in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes (1926) a maiden aunt abandons Apsley Terrace for the dark arts and a cottage in the Bedfordshire Chilterns.
The first good thing about The Wicker Man is that Edward Woodward’s in it. Playing Sergeant Howie of the West Highland Constabulary. Woodward can do no wrong by my book. He’s a brilliant actor. The second good thing about The Wicker Man is that Anthony Shaffer wrote the script, the genius also responsible for Sleuth (1972), Frenzy (1972), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978). Shaffer wanted The Wicker Man to be a little bit literate, a little bit brainier than your average horror: ‘The Citizen Kane of Horror Movies’.
Neil Howie (a policeman with a pilot’s licence) is sent to investigate the disappearance of a young girl on Summerisle- a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Possibly inner or outer, it’s not entirely clear, but somewhere on the gulf stream of the Sub-Tropical Western Isles, which means wide sandy beaches, palm trees and a surprisingly balmy climate, plus apple trees, a laird (Lord Summerisle) played by Christopher Lee and a wig. David Pinner’s original novel, published in 1967, was actually set in Cornwall, a location, perhaps, which fits slightly better with that rather bucolic English tradition: Wassailing, Ley Lines, Glastonbury Tor, the Padstow ‘obby ‘orse— and all that.
There’s also a rather appealing soundtrack— of the hippy variety— written by the American singer and musician, Paul Giovanni, and played by Magnet, a folk band assembled for the film. And it works beautifully with the bucolic weirdness. Kiddywinks dance around a phallic symbol (Farah slacks and Beatles mops) making the most suggestive movements with their hands, Christopher Lee sports the most extraordinary wig (‘the greatest performance of my career’), creepy crawlies are nailed to a school desk, live toads are used as cures for sore throat, villagers copulate over gravestones and Britt Ekland (actually Lorraine Peters, a Glaswegian nightclub dancer) bangs her naked body up against the wall of a hotel bedroom. And there’s animal masks, gingerbread hares, and a plastic Hand of Glory.
There are three different cuts. The film originally ran to 100 mins plus. On the advice of horror director Roger Corman, the film was cut by some thirteen minutes, and the narrative re-arranged— which may explain why, when it was shown the first time around, it didn’t make sense. Sergeant Howie is a devout hard-line Calvinist, and despite being engaged to be married, is a virgin to boot, a man who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage— which explains why the islanders lure him to Summerisle in the first place.
It now gets geeky and complicated, such stuff as cult films are made of. Film buffs got to work and tracked down the film’s original negative, which, according to legend— so take this with a pinch of salt— were rediscovered under pylons propping up the M4 motorway. So there are several new versions, including The Extended Director’s Cut (2001) (99 minutes), with the latest being The Wicker Man: The Final Cut (2013) (91 minutes), restored in 2023 with the approval of Robin Hardy.
The Wicker Man is often described as a horror film. But is it? Sort of. I mean, Ingrid Pitt and Christopher Lee are in it. But in the fright stakes, it’s hardly The Haunting (1963), The Woman in Black (1989) or, for that matter, The Shining (1980). Remember the creepy twins in the hotel corridor? The Wicker Man is more of a mystery, perhaps, even a quasi-musical. That said, the infamous ending is disturbing, haunting even— with a terrific ‘performance of a career’ from Edward Woodward. For The Wicker Man is something special: eccentric, fun, utterly bonkers— and very, very British. Film history- and British culture- would be at a loss without it.
So come. It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man. On Amazon Prime video download, DVD or Blu-Ray. When it comes to DVD editions, take your pick. Personally, I would go for a re-mastered film buff’s edition, with the restored missing sections, documentaries and all the extra goodies.
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I will be back next Friday. In the meantime, I hope you have a relaxing and cinematic Sunday. So why not settle down with a cocktail and a film this evening? I can’t think of anything more civilised…
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This is a legendary film. Sometimes the back story seems more overpowering than the film itself. But if you stick to what the original intention was it is, as you suggest, a film difficult to pin down weird to the point of eccentricity, with an ending as starkly grim as anything else to come out around this time. As a double-bill with Don't Look Now, I'd have thought that the psychological impact could have been quite traumatic and unforgettable.
I have the 2002 Director's Cut version, which also comes with extras including the bowdlerised version we used to see on TV, and a documentary. I also have both a book about the making of the film and a copy of the original novel (somewhere!). This is definitely a film I've got nerdy about in the past!
Camp yet terrifying. Quite the combination.