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The Wicker Man is
a 1973 cult classic film in a genre all its own -- suspense? horror?
mystery? folk musical? -- starring Edward Woodward as Sergeant Neil
Howie, Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, Britt Ekland as Willow
MacGregor, and Diane Cilento as Miss Rose. The music enhances the
film wonderfully. It's early 70s folk -- flawed, dated, and
altogether delightful -- performed by Magnet (sometimes credited as
"Lodestone") and Paul Giovanni.
The story takes
place in Scotland, and revolves around a stiff and pious policeman,
Neil Howie, who receives an anonymous letter regarding a missing
girl. To investigate, he travels to Summerisle, a mysterious island
beyond the Outer Hebrides. He soon discovers that the island's
inhabitants have abandoned Christianity for a vivid and sensuous
pagan religion, which he comes to believe is the cause of the girl's
disappearance. But naturally, nothing is quite as it seems...
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Wicker
Man Film
Trivia
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- The opening song
("O I am come to the low countrie...") is a Robert Burns
song called "The Highland Widow's Lament." It is closely
followed by another Burns song, "Corn Rigs" ("It was
upon a Lammas night when corn rigs are bonnie...").
- Though the story
takes place in spring, most of the filming was done in autumn, and
the appleblossoms were glued onto the trees in some scenes.
- When Lord
Summerisle stands beneath Willow's window during the initiation of
Ash Buchanan, his speech ("I think I could turn and live with
the animals, they are so placid and self-contained...") is a
quote from American poet Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
- The "pagan
religion" depicted in the film is heavily influenced by Sir
James George Frazer's popular but not-always-accurate turn of the
century work, The Golden Bough.
Wicker
Man Cast Member Trivia . . . . . .
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- Edward Woodward
(Sergeant Neil Howie) played "The Equalizer" on the 1980s
TV show of that name.
- Christopher Lee
(Lord Summerisle) played Saruman in The Lord of the Rings.
- Of all the films
he starred in (including Dracula), The Wicker Man is
Christopher Lee's own favorite.
- Britt Ekland
(Willow) couldn't manage a Scottish accent, and all her lines are
dubbed by the actress Leslie Mackie, who played Daisy. A body double
was also used for Britt in the nude dance scene.
- Britt Ekland was
once married to Peter Sellers and dated rock star Rod Stewart.
- Diane Cilento
(Miss Rose) is Sean Connery's ex-wife, and the mother of Jason
Connery, who played Robin Hood in the 1980s BBC program Robin of Sherwood.
- Ingrid Pitt, who
played the librarian, was born in Poland in 1937 and is a Holocaust
concentration camp survivor.
- Many of the
villagers are played by locals, instead of professional actors.
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Some Favorite Quotes from the film
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Willow: Some
things in their natural state have the most -- vivid colours.
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Miss Rose: Now
Daisy, will you tell us, please, what it is that the Maypole represents?
[There is a pause
in which the girl doesn't answer.] Really, Daisy, you've been told
often enough.
Schoolgirls
(eagerly): Miss Rose, I know, I know! Phallic symbol!
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Miss Rose: The
children find it much easier to picture reincarnation than resurrection.
Those rotting bodies are a great stumbling-block to the childish imagination.
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Miss Rose: The
building attached to the ground in which the body lies is no longer
used for Christian worship. So whether or not it is still a
"churchyard" is debatable.
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Sgt. Howie: Where
does your minister live?
Gravedigger:
Minister...? Minister...! [laughing derisively]
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Sgt. Howie: But
they -- they are naked!
Summerisle:
Naturally! It's much too dangerous to jump through the fire with your
clothes on.
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Summerisle: Do sit
down, Sergeant. Shocks are so much better absorbed with the knees bent.
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Summerisle: After
all, what girl would not prefer the child of a god to that of some
acne-scarred artisan?
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Summerisle: What
my grandfather started out of expediency, my father continued out of
love. He brought me up the same way -- to reverence the music and the
drama and the rituals of the old gods. To love nature and to fear it,
and to rely on it, and to appease it when necessary. He brought me up...
Sgt. Howie: He
brought you up to be a pagan!
Summerisle: A
heathen, conceivably -- but not, I hope, an unenlightened one.
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Sgt. Howie: Dear
God, even these people can't be that mad...
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Summerisle:
Sergeant Howie, I believe that you are supposed to be the
detective here.
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