The Wicker Man

Or, as the sub-heading says: How Not To Make A Cult Classic.

Here is everything you might ever want to know about how this film was conceived, written, filmed, then lost in a welter of poor reviews, lacklustre distribution and – if star Christopher Lee is to be believed – outright, wilful malice on the part of the studio executives who inherited it. (The negative went into a landfill; although that really does seem to have been a simple – dreadful in this instance – case of poor housekeeping.)

I was lucky enough to see The Wicker Man when it was first released in 1973, as the second half of a double bill with Don’t Look Now. (I still think it’s the better of the two films.) I had no idea what I was going to see and I remember being pinned to my seat in the cinema as the dreadful logic of the plot unfolded.

Reading this excellent book, you can only be grateful – and a little bit surprised - that the film survived all its trials and tribulations to become the classic that it so deservedly is. (And it'll leave you shaking your head at the thought that anybody ever, EVER, believed it might be good idea to attempt a remake.)