The story of The Wicker Man is clearly more than just your average tale of film-making. Its original cinema release saw it butchered down to just 86 minutes so that it could run as support to Don't Look Now, the original negatives were destroyed and its US release is a nightmare of rights changing hands.

But somehow the film has endured. More than that, it's actually thrived.

Reading Allan Brown's history of the film I was reminded of a quote in the documentary included on the 25th anniversary video release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show - the film's success came out of it's failure: how would things have turned out if The Wicker Man had been a modest success on its original release?

Of course we'll never know the answer to that, but Inside the Wicker Man would have been a lot less interesting if the film had done a half-decent job at the box office.

Allan Brown follows the story from the start through to the writing and filming before we get to the torturous tale of British Lion's treatment of the film and the story of its eventual release in the States.

Along the way he's talked to most of the major players and this being The Wicker Man they often have contradictory stories to tell (notably Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer), but a lot of these discrepancies can be put down to the passage of time rather than an sinister plots. Along the way, several myths are debunked, including the junking of the original negatives and that old story about Rod Stewart trying to buy the rights to the film because Britt Ekland gets her kit off in it ("I can't believe he's serious," says Paul Giovanni. "I mean, her tits have been in nearly all her movies!")

At a penny under fifteen quid, Inside the Wicker Man is an expensive buy, but the wealth of information and the attention to detail makes it a must-have for anyone interested in the film itself or film-making in general. BACK TO THE TOP

INSIDE THE WICKER MAN

Written by ALLAN BROWN

SIDGWICK & JACKSON

£14.99


RATING: 8/10