My first appointment with “The Wicker Man” had came, rather worryingly, at the tender age of just 14 when it had aired on BBC2 as part of that year’s season of “Moviedrome”.

It had all begun with a jazz-tinged, neon lit introduction by cult British director Alex “Repo Man” Cox in which he had informed me, amongst other things, that a cult film was “one which has a passionate following but does not appeal to everybody” and, most intriguingly of all, that the negative for “The Wicker Man” had apparently ended up “in the pylons that support the M4 motorway”.Then, before I had barely begun to question just who Cox’s hairdresser was the familiar refrains of “The Lord Is My Shepherd” had assailed my ears and the film had begun.

As I sat there, lit only by the flickering glow from the small, portable TV set a number of thoughts and concepts had spun their way furiously round my addled teenage brain. First and foremost was the question of quite what my loving mother would think if she knew her son was staying up late to watch a horror movie that incorporated such themes as pagan sacrifice, fertility rituals and sexual magic? And secondly, and perhaps most importantly, was the fact that said film had turned out to be so indescribably fascinating; the strange characters and events unfolding before my eyes a far cry from the horror films I’d previously become accustomed to.

Granted, my youth, innocence and teenage ignorance would mean a lot of the more subtle aspects of the film were lost on me but that night had nonetheless implanted a great deal of unforgettable imagery in my innocent mind … Christopher Lee’s wild hair, Britt Eckland’s boobs, a sinister menagerie of masked figures, Britt Eckland’s boobs, the towering behemoth that was The Wicker Man himself and, of course, Britt Eckland’s boobs!

And so, trying desperately not to become overly distracted by the aformentioned imagery, we fast forward 22 years and find the film still attracting the same brand of furious cult appeal it first garnered back in the early Seventies. American film magazine Cinefantastique have famously labelled it “the Citizen Kane of horror movies” and devoted the majority of their Volume 6, Number 3 issue from 1977 to the film, it won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film in 1978 and currently holds a 91% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes whilst Christopher Lee regularly extolls its many virtues and  regards it as the greatest film he’s ever made, despite not being paid a single penny for doing so. But is all this praise and hyperbole truly justified?

In a word, yes!

So allow me, if you’d be so kind, to explain just why I love “The Wicker Man” so very much, why it ranks as one of my all time favourite films and why it’s a film that everybody should seek out and watch at the earliest opportunity (if, of course, you’ve not done so already).  But first, let us take the time to cast our eyes backwards once more as we take a brief look at the torrid production history that very nearly saw the film disappear into obscurity and never released upon the general public.

For “The Wicker Man”, it seems, has an origin story every bit as colourful and crazy as the many individuals that inhabit the distant shores of Summerisle itself; seemingly defying the odds stacked against it and surviving, despite what seemed like a conspiracy by both Fate and Chance to erase it from the very pages of cinematic history.

The film had gone into production under the supervision of the British Lion Film Corporation at a time of crisis for the British Film Industry, with Peter Snell serving as producer. However, with British Lion in financial crisis it had eventually fallen to businessman John Bentley to step in and save the film whereby it was immediately rushed into production; filming Springtime scenes in the middle of October and glueing leaves and blossoms onto the trees. A change in upper management at the company had ultimately led to Snell’s removal, and, when the new kids on the block had decided, in their infinite wisdom, that the film was unlikely to score big at the box office, the movie had seemed doomed to end its life consigned to virtual oblivion.

Hardy’s original 100 minute version had eventually had about 12 minutes of footage trimmed from it and the result ended up playing as part of a double bill with Nic Roeg’s “Don’t Look Now”. But this tale has a most unfortuitous of  footnotes and, if things weren’t bad enough already, the master negative had sadly been lost when it was inadvertently included in a shipment of disposable material that ended up buried beneath the M3 freeway.

So, Cox HAD been right all those years ago!

The script for “The Wicker Man” was penned by one Anthony Schaffer, a novelist, playwright and screenwriter who also adapted his own 1970 play “Sleuth” into a wonderfully enjoyable 1972 film starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. On approaching the script Schaffer was keen to break convention and craft a horror film that avoided such genre staples as gratuitous blood and gore yet one that remained terrifyingly chilling nonetheless. It was, therefore, a cunning sleight of hand to cast such Hammer stalwarts as Christopher Lee and Ingrid Pitt and thus further the illusion that this was, indeed, a “horror” movie. As Lord Summerisle Lee delivers what is arguably his greatest ever performance, which is no mean feat when you consider that since 1948 he has appeared in no less than 266 films!

Yet despite highly questionable taste in clothing, a penchant for impromptu bawdy sing alongs and a quite horrific fright wig Lee effortlessly balances the mysterious with the mischievous whilst somehow managing to avoid the kind of OTT pantomime theatrics that so often beleaguer such roles. One of my quintessential Summerisle moments would undoubtedly be his response to Howie regarding a pagan ceremony. Upon spying a female congregation dancing naked over and around a fire Howie exclaims, “But those girls … they’re dancing in fire … and they’re naked!”, to which Summerisle replies, matter of factly, “Of course they’re naked … it’s far too dangerous to jump through fire with your clothes on!”.

On the flip side Pitt’s role is little more than a glorified cameo, but in her role as the local librarian she furthers the films omnipresent air of dark seduction … besides, who can quite forget the unforgettable image of her caught unawares in that undersized tin bath? And speaking of seduction how can we possibly fail to mention Britt Eckland who, despite allegedly having her vocals dubbed by Scottish jazz singer Annie Ross and requiring a stunt double for her naked rear shots, is wonderfully sensuous and beguiling as Willow, the legendary landlord’s daughter.

On Thursday I’ll be continuing this look back at The Wicker Man, check back then.

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NICK TURK IS A SELF PROCLAIMED MOVIE GEEK, HORROR FANATIC, ASPIRING WRITER AND PS3 GAMER. HIS FAVOURITE FILMS INCLUDE THE WICKER MAN, BLADE RUNNER, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, LOST IN TRANSLATION, MEMENTO AND DONNIE DARKO WHILST HIS FAVOURITE DIRECTORS INCLUDE DAVID LYNCH, TERRY GILLIAM, DAVID CRONENBERG, STANLEY KUBRICK AND JOEL AND ETHAN COEN. HELLO, GOOD EVENING AND WELCOME TO MY WORLD ...