Flicker Fusion

Dispatches from this year’s Hay-on-Wye literature festival, courtesy of MovieMail correspondent Graeme Hobbs, confirm that director Robin Hardy is in fine fettle and still promising to deliver a much awaited ‘re-imagining’ of his cult 1973 film, The Wicker Man. Hardy has published a novel called Cowboys for Christ, which presents a new take on the Christian-cop-infiltrates-Pagan-island scenario. This time, it is a God-fearing couple from Texas who arrive at a remote community and find their welcome, like Edward Woodward’s Sergeant Howie in the earlier film, somewhat less than warm. (Although being burned to death in a wicker man could be regarded as a very warm welcome.)

Details about the potential film adaptation of Cowboys for Christ are sketchy though. Hardy appeared confident that the new film is going to happen, and the IMDB says it’s in production. But then the IMDB often says that, even if all that’s happened is a favourable lunch meeting with a potential director and someone who knows a bloke who knows a bloke with access to funding.

And Hardy has been hauling this property for a long time. About six years ago he was attached to a project — announced on IMDB as being in ‘pre-production’ — called The Riding of the Laddie. Since then it’s done the rounds as May Day, before surfacing as the new novel. Hardy is certainly a persistent hawker. But is he a serious film-maker?

I’ve always liked The Wicker Man, but I feel there’s something a bit Emperor’s-New-Clothes about its elevation to “greatest British film of all time” or whatever else it’s been called. I get the impression that critics new to it approach it with unquestioning piety and respect, rather like Sergeant Howie entering a church. In fact, I’m beginning to think that EMI did the film a favour by burying it in 1973. If it had been released with all guns blazing, would it have the same reputation now? There’s nothing like suppressing a movie and chopping it to bits to mobilise an army of fans.

Still there’s no question that, flaws aside, The Wicker Man is a remarkable experience. As a ‘horror’, it stands far above Hammer’s po-faced, studio-bound output. But it’s also brave in its resistance to the horror classification. Half of it looks like a jaunty musical — it could be Finian’s Rainbow with a very grim ending. It has a humour and an earthy stylishness (literally). There’s also Edward Woodward’s performance as Howie, probably the best thing about the film.

But personally I don’t think The Wicker Man is any better than Sidney Hayers’ Night of the Eagle or Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon or Ealing’s Dead of Night, or even a few films without ‘night’ in the title. And, even if you think it is, why does Hardy need to make it again? Can’t he do anything else? It’s worth remembering that his only other directorial effort, The Fantasist (1986), is one of the worst films ever to run through a projector. We can’t blame EMI for that.

Nevertheless, I do hope the Cowboys for Christ project gets off the ground. Until then we have Hardy’s novel, which is effectively a prose screenplay anyway and which, in Graeme’s words, is “thoroughly cliched and enjoyably scurrilous; a decent afternoon’s read”.