Inside The Wicker Man: How Not to Make a Cult Classic - Softcover

Brown, Allan

4.1

211 ratings by Goodreads

9781846971440: Inside The Wicker Man: How Not to Make a Cult Classic

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846971446 ISBN 13: 9781846971440

Publisher: Birlinn Ltd, 2010

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Inside The Wicker Man is a treat for all cinemagoers, exhaustively researched and achieving a near-perfect balance between history, trivia and serious analysis. Allan Brown describes the filming and distribution of the cult masterpiece as a 'textbook example of How Things Should Never Be Done'. The omens were bad from the start, and proceeded to get much, much worse, with fake blossom on trees to simulate spring, actors chomping on ice-cubes to prevent their breath showing on film, and verbal and physical confrontations involving both cast and crew. The studio hated it and hardly bothered to distribute it, but today it finds favour with critics and fans alike, as a serious—if flawed—piece of cinema. Brown expertly guides readers through the film's convoluted history, attempting along the way to explain its enduring fascination, and providing interviews with the key figures—many of whom still have an axe to grind, and some of whom still harbour plans for a sequel.

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About the Author:

Allan Brown is an award-winning writer and critic with the Scottish edition of The Sunday Times. He lives in Glasgow.

From Booklist:

This updating of the hard-to-find 2000 edition of this volume will be a must-read for fans of The Wicker Man, the 1973 British thriller that has achieved cult status. Brown, a Scottish newspaper writer who is also clearly an ardent fan of the movie, chronicles its production—it was filmed entirely on location in Scotland, in frequently inhospitable weather conditions—and its troubled postproduction journey. According to Brown (who provides solid documentation throughout), the movie was butchered in editing, mishandled by its distributors, and nearly lost forever when a print of the original, unedited version was destroyed. The text features interviews with numerous participants in the movie—its director and writer, its stars, and many key people involved in the production—and is written in a lively, outspoken style (for example, the author describes the 2006 remake of the movie as “inconceivably feeble” and “a farcical anthology of mad vanity and B-movie clich�”). Devotees of The Wicker Man—and these number in the thousands—will flock to this insightful, highly detailed, and hugely entertaining book. --David Pitt

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