The Wicker Man - restored Director's cut full length version.

The Wicker Man film - now restored to full length 

The Wicker Man - acknowledged as one of the classic British films of all time

You may have heard of the Wicker Man film, yet it is one that many have not seen. In an interview some years ago, Christopher Lee one of the lead actors commented that there was about 15 minutes missing from what had been filmed.

Christopher Lee (centre) in the lead role as Lord Summerisle

At the time of the film release he identified this fact but was told that the footage could not be located. It was some years before a good, original length film transfer came to light. The film has now been restored and issued in a 2 disc version, one disc is the 'as released' for cinema version and the other disc is the Director's cut, restored to the original, longer running time.

Edward Woodward as Sergeant Howie in the Wicker Man film

Identified as a cult film only after it was released in America, Wicker Man is more like a carnival than a true horror picture. Today's horror offerings really are more frightening and explicitly more violent, but the Wicker Man is more whimsical than you might be expecting. I think that this whimsicality gives the film something unique.

The Green Man Inn pub sign -

the Green Man, a symbol of the 'Pagan' style belief system, 
a belief system based partly on this featured in the film

The premise of the film is that Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) a policeman from the mainland, receives an anonymous letter reporting a missing child on the isle of Summerisle. Summerisle being a Scottish island overseen by Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee). Summerisle is part of an archipelago of small and scattered islands off the Scottish coast.

Sergeant Howie is given the runaround by the locals from the outset

Upon arriving, Sgt Howie starts to make enquiries, only to find that he is mislead or in some cases, deliberately obstructed from finding out the answers he requires.

Ingrid Pitt (near camera) as the Librarian

Summerisle is a 'closed community' situation, a place where there are no outsiders and outsiders when they do visit, stick out. Things work differently on Summerisle, it is a cross between a feudal society with a belief system run along a Pagan style of reverence. (it is not difficult to see how a series like the League of gentlemen may have been inspired by this type of situation?)

Britt Ekland was another of the main players in the film as the Landlord's daughter

Sgt Howie is a deeply religious man, of the Christian faith and he soon finds things that give him displeasure happening on the island. He finds temptation from the Landlord's daughter (played by Britt Ekland) directed towards him. 

Howie Bursts in on Ingrid Pitt's character

Howie's prudishness seems old fashioned by today's standards, he does not pursue the obvious syrenical seduction coming from the landlord's daughter or is he distracted by the naked Librarian in her bath when he breaks into her house looking for the missing person.

The locals taunt Howie with the risqué folk song 'the landlord's daughter.'  

But Howie refuses to yield and continues his investigation singlehanded, on an island with no vehicles, (an island that he reached by piloting a seaplane into the local harbour).

The May Day procession scene

Howie suspects that the missing person may still be alive and joins the May Day procession, hoping to locate the target of his enquiries. He knocks out the land lord and takes his Mr Punch costume, joining the procession in disguise, he believes without his true identity being known.

Howie is unmasked 

Howie is correct in his presumption but is then overpowered - I won't spoil the ending but the film is an allegory of the closed society with its own way of things, in which the 20th century does not sit well in context, or is indeed welcome.

A local island, for local people - 

echoed in shades of 'Royston Vasey' some years later?

It is remarkable that the film was made at all, British Lion films that started the project went out of business during the film and two other concerns took on the project. This led to the cutting of some footage which did not help the storyline.

Filmed late in the year, it was often touch and go when filming to be able to get the external location scenes filmed whilst the sun made a brief appearance! The rugged coastline and isolated unspoilt location gave the film a feeling of insularity.

Fantastic location settings really enhanced the film

The Wicker Man has gone on to become a cult film, in the same way that many other cult films have, by not being that successful on release -  for Wicker Man it formed part of a double bill feature, which did it no real favours in the UK but in the US, with a bigger audience, it became well thought of.

The main actors in the film really stand out and even if the film was not a big earner for the in the first instance, it has no doubt helped them since with a revered film to put on their CV. A pity that with such a wealth of acting talent, that the film could not have been more involved. Perhaps the situation with the studio meant that the film had to be completed without delay.

American Indian Spiritual and Pagan alternative belief systems - an answer to the consumer society

Reconnecting with nature recharges the spirit

So, if you are not into organised religion, you are not necessarily disenfranchised. Indeed, many are finding organised religion a turn off and are leaving it.

We often hear of dwindling church congregations of half a dozen stalwarts, the phrase 'when two or three are gathered together,' may be how organised religion eventually ends, when it is unviable to provide.

So where have all of these followers gone? why has organised religion declined? The stance by many schools to dispense with formal and religious based assemblies has been the biggest driver of a lack of following in recent times along with trendy left-leaning teachers. Communists despise religion.

A general malaise from the 1950's onwards has led people who were constrained by the strictures of wartime rationing and observance of regulations like the blackout, to rebel. Even after the war, rationing stayed in force, longer indeed than the war itself lasted.

When that was repealed, they found a new freedom, then came rock n roll and the swinging sixties. The grip of organised religion became ever more tenuous with the goings on of the Haight-Ashbory set and the New Age generation setting new standards and pushing the boundaries of acceptability.

The Green Man

a spiritual symbol thought to originate from the Greek God of Nature, Dionysis

Life became busier from the 1960's and the people became richer, but not spiritually.

A spin off of the New Agers of late 60's America was the resurgence of the Pagan and Spiritualist belief systems. In fact these have many shared traits with the American Indian people who have a spiritualist type of existence. I have come to see I have more in common with the American Indian beliefs than than the organised religion I was spoon fed.

People have become cynical, they have been lied to too many times by politicians supposedly acting in their best interests, when they are often clearly not.

The prevalence of UFO sightings has no doubt come to mind and the pat and frankly childish denials of the subject and convenient explanations fools no one. The people can see through the illusions.

The recent Brexit campaign was one example that the game is up, protestations of forthcoming Biblical-dimension doom and gloom if we voted to leave the EU were laughable.

The politicians severely underestimated the people's ability to see through the veiled threats, the desperate pleas to remain were ignored. The political arena changed, with people supporting in the past the major parties only, crossing the floor to vote with people from other parties for what they all thought was right for the majority and country, not just themsleves.

Even church leaders frantically and desperately tried to shore up the remain vote, a symptom of the present is that people made up their own minds.

An over 300 foot wide Mayan / Hopi Indian symbol appeared in crops at Silbury Wiltshire

This sort of instance has driven people to ask questions, questions about where we are going, where we are being led and who is leading us, do they actually know what they are doing?

A way of thought is developing and people are less accepting of dogma and rhetoric, they can see through the bullshit. The game has changed and so have people's need to find something else to follow, a true path and a true way of their own.

People are finding they need to re-evaluate their lives. They are often very busy running around with very busy lives that they are becoming ill with all the pressures that face them. 'New age' retreats allow people to find themselves, where they find people that help them redefine what is actually important in their lives.

Some then connect to nature, they find as the American Indians have, that going back to the forests reconnects them to a better place in their own minds. I have found that the countryside is always best for me to be in, just to stand in a forest, take in the air and enjoy the calmness does amazing things for you. It is like a warm rippling energy permeates you.

And this is why the Pagan and Spiritual beliefs have come back as a rejection of the modern consumer society by some people who have seen the light.

Go and read some American Indian wisdom, you will find for yourself that they have a great wealth of wisdom and knowledge. You will spiritually enrich yourself if you do so and go out into the forests and soak up the natural vibe. Then look for a way out, off the treadmill.