The Wicker Man was written by Anthony Shaffer, the author of Sleuth. Cinefantastique called it, rather optimistically, the Citizen Kane of horror films. Its British director was Robin Hardy, who formerly specialised in television commercials. It has a cult reputation despite the fact that most of those who rate it very highly have not seen the original version. It was initially 102 minutes long, but the owners of the film decided that it would be much better if they cut 15 minutes and put it out as the second half of a double bill. (This was back in the days when you used to get two films for the price of one.) So they cut it down to 87 minutes and, in 1973, released it on a double bill with Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. As the years went by and the film’s cult reputation grew, attempts were made to restore the missing portions, but most of the original negative had gone missing. Apparently it had ended up in the pylons that support the M4 motorway. The ‘original version’ has now been partly restored for television. However, there’s one principal scene still missing, an early sequence in which Edward Woodward, who plays a Scottish police officer, is introduced, and we’re told he’s engaged to be married and has not yet ‘known a woman’. This is worth bearing in mind as you enjoy the pagan delights of The Wicker Man, which include Lindsay Kemp, the mime artist, Christopher Lee without his cape, and Britt Ekland dubbed in Scottish.