'It is time for your appointment with The Wicker Man...'

The beginnings of horror... and the end. Part Three

 

'Summer is icumen in...'

By 1979, films from earlier in the same decade were beginning to filter through to the late night horror line-up on television, and in January of that year, ATV embarked on a themed season of Friday night horrors starring Christopher Lee. Some of the titles were relatively recent, and appearing for the first time on television. Thus it was that, without any foreknowledge of what to expect, on Friday 16^th March, 1979, at 10.30pm, I sat down to watch The Wicker Man.

These days, mere mention of the title is enough to get a response from anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of 1970s British cinema. But back in 1979, The Wicker Man was an unknown quantity, barely six years on from its low-key release in cinemas, where it had made little or no impression. Adding interest to the film was the presence of Callan star Edward Woodward, who seemed to be getting the (British) lion’s share of the screen time, and for the first half hour or so I began to wonder when we were going to see the master of terror himself. When he finally emerged from behind a wing chair (his first scene in this, the original theatrical cut), it came as something of a surprise to see Chrstopher Lee sporting fashionably long hair (a wig, as was the hair he wore in all his films, disguising a naturally bald pate). Still more surprising was his performance; for once, not a monster, but the outwardly charming Lord and master of a small Scottish island.

By this point in the film, I had already begun to form an opinion of The Wicker Man. I still wasn’t exactly sure whether I entirely liked it, but it was clearly something different, and its location work set it apart from many other entries in the genre. If nothing else, it was an intriguing oddity, with its folk song soundtrack and soft porn scenes (a distinct embarrassment to sit through with my mother watching). It certainly didn’t look much like a typical horror film, with its brilliant palette of early 70s fashions, and bright springlike weather that betrayed not a hint of the late autumn shooting dates. This, of course, was all part of the film’s genius.

All the way through, I reckoned I knew what was going on and how the film would end: Woodward’s good ‘Christian copper’ would find the girl and crack the pagan murder plot. So the denouement, when it came, was as much of a shock to me as it was to Sgt. Neil Howie, as he is marched off to his ‘appointment with the Wicker Man’. I couldn’t quite believe it. Surely our hero was going to escape, somehow?

The climactic scene at least solved a mystery that had puzzled me all the way through the film: why was it called The Wicker Man? Anyone who had seen the film during its brief cinema release might have taken a hint from the poster, which depicted the gaunt, wickerwork giant, but the TVTimes offered no such visual clues; and when the towering monstrosity finally appeared on screen, it did so with the maximum of impact. 

I think it’s fair to say that the ending left me somewhat stunned. I was still going over it in my mind twenty four hours later. I’d never seen a film quite like it. Probably because there never had been, nor ever has been another movie remotely comparable. A horror-musical with folk songs and pagan ritual that ends with the murder of the hero character? It’s the kind of thing that can really only be done once (and yes, I know there’s been a remake, an utterly pointless exercise, which, like 99% of all movie remakes, can safely be ignored).

For me, The Wicker Man passed into history, an intriguing and memorable movie that could only pull off its surprise storyline once. I missed a second ITV screening (not to mention a chance to capture the film on video), and didn’t give it much thought for a good many years. It wasn’t until 1988 with its appearance in Alex Cox’s BBC2 Moviedrome season that I got any hint of the controversy surrounding the film. Now I learned, for the first time, of the missing scenes, several of which were restored for this broadcast (albeit in a quality noticeably inferior from the rest of the film), and the checkered history of The Wicker Man. All of this is now, of course, common knowledge, and the complete ‘director’s cut’ has been available to buy for many years. In a sense, the elevation of The Wicker Man to the status of a cult felt like a form of vindication. I’d been impressed by the movie the first time I saw it, but I was left with the vague impression that it wasn’t the kind of film one should admit to liking, an almost guilty pleasure. It was a bit rude; certainly it was morally suspect. Now here it was being acknowledged as a modern classic: like so many other dodgy films and TV series that I’d grown up with.

Now, in addition, we had even more of The Wicker Man to pore over. Only one key scene was restored for the 1988 Moviedrome broadcast, and we were left to speculate as to the other footage that was, at the time, believed lost. Quite some time later, I was shown a bootleg DVD of an even longer cut, and eventually this ‘complete’ version was made available to buy as a legitimate release.

Interesting though it may be, this longer edit of The Wicker Man just doesn’t do it for me. The theatrical version feels tight and spare, even if it does introduce some oddities into the chronology of the film’s events (by placing the bedroom scene with Willow and Howie much earlier than originally intended). By contrast, the director’s cut contains a long and ill-judged scene on the mainland introducing and, to some extent, ridiculing Edward Woodward’s character. None of this is necessary, and the background detail is conveyed far more succinctly in the version that was eventually seen in cinemas. The cut sequences are interesting to see out of context, but re-inserted into the film, they spoil the pacing and, worse still, erode the audience’s sympathies with the character of Sgt. Howie.

Missing scenes are always intriguing, but they don’t always add to the films or TV series from which they have been excised. With both long and short versions of The Wicker Man now available to view, it’s always the shorter version that I choose. Even so, nothing can ever recapture the mood of seeing the film for the first time, with the impact of that breathtaking climax, which has few if any equals in the history of cinema. 

Critically, when I first saw The Wicker Man, it was a forgotten film, a 6-year-old B movie that had quickly found its way onto television. It’s almost impossible for anyone to come to that film today without even a passing knowledge of the reputation which sails before it, so in a sense, my experience of encountering it for the first time was unique and unrepeatable.

Cults are always best encountered before you realise they’re a cult – a sentiment with which I doubt Sergeant Howie would entirely sympathise. And shocks are so much better absorbed with the knees bent...