Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind, This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 1: We have some episodes here for you. Let's see. Today
Speaker 1: is going to be The wicker Man nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: a part one of two. We had a lot to
Speaker 1: say about this one, so we broke it up into
Speaker 1: two pieces. This piece originally published five to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: This is a vacation week, a week when we are
Speaker 1: airing reruns every day in an attempt to catch up
Speaker 1: and stay current and all. So this is a prime
Speaker 1: week for a Weird House Cinema two partner because in
Speaker 1: the Friday slot this week we will air The wicker
Speaker 1: Man nineteen seventy three, Part two. So anyway, I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy this one and you'll get the other one
Speaker 1: again at the end of the week.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and.
Speaker 3: This is Joe McCormick. And today, as we are recording this,
Speaker 3: it is May first, the sacred festival of May Day,
Speaker 3: and so we are going to be talking in accordance
Speaker 3: with the season about the classic nineteen seventy three British film,
Speaker 3: The wicker Man, which is usually usually grouped under a
Speaker 3: genre people call full corror. Maybe we can quibble in
Speaker 3: this episode about whether that title should or should not
Speaker 3: be applied. And also note though we rarely do this
Speaker 3: on Weird House Cinema, usually we keep it one movie
Speaker 3: per episode. This is one we think we're going to
Speaker 3: have to split into two parts because we love the
Speaker 3: Wickerman and we're going to have a lot to say
Speaker 3: about it. The only two other movies we've ever done
Speaker 3: this with before were David Lynch's Doune and Highlander two
Speaker 3: The Quickening, So putting the Wickerman in there, there is
Speaker 3: cohesion to this trinity.
Speaker 1: Yes, these are three films that are often associated with
Speaker 1: each other, but I do agree like there's a lot
Speaker 1: to say about the Wickerman. We're probably going to go
Speaker 1: on and on a bit in a good way, so
Speaker 1: it's very possible we'll split here.
Speaker 3: So I'm very excited because The Wickerman is one of
Speaker 3: my personal favorite movies. In fact, it's a mutual favorite
Speaker 3: in our house. It's also one of my wife Rachel's
Speaker 3: all time favorite movies. So we've got a lot of
Speaker 3: like Wickerman merch in our house. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you've seen any of that stuff, Rob, but we've got
Speaker 3: like a Wickerman night light, and.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I don't think I remember seeing any of this.
Speaker 1: All right, it's great.
Speaker 3: Well it lights up behind the Wicker glows. You know,
Speaker 3: there's kind of an orange glow behind a Wickerman silhouette.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 3: Actually, before we go on to any further detail, there
Speaker 3: is something I definitely want to say. So in every
Speaker 3: Weird House Cinema episode we end up discussing the plot
Speaker 3: of the movie that we're covering in some detail. So
Speaker 3: it's always the case that you should watch the movie
Speaker 3: first if you don't want to have anything spoiled. But
Speaker 3: if you've never seen The Wickerman from nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 3: this in particular is really a film I would recommend
Speaker 3: going into knowing as little as possible. Obviously, it gets
Speaker 3: into some horror territory, so if you're sensitive to horror themes,
Speaker 3: you can look things up ahead of time. But otherwise,
Speaker 3: if you have a general appetite for horror, I would
Speaker 3: strongly strongly encourage you to not even glance at a
Speaker 3: plot summary, not listen.
Speaker 4: To any more of this episode, just go ahead and watch.
Speaker 1: It, but then come back and listen to this. Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, So the first time I saw it, a friend
Speaker 3: of mine when I was in college showed it to
Speaker 3: me without telling me telling me anything ahead of time.
Speaker 3: I'm just really grateful I got to experience it that way.
Speaker 3: The Wickerman is such an unusual and surprising film. It
Speaker 3: is full of unexpected humor and horror and delight and despair,
Speaker 3: and even now, like fifty years later, in a world
Speaker 3: where a lot of movies you may have already seen
Speaker 3: have been inla fluenced by The Wickerman. If you haven't
Speaker 3: seen it before and you don't know everything ahead of time,
Speaker 3: I think it will keep you very intrigued and puzzled
Speaker 3: in the best possible way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, It's a film that really stands on its own,
Speaker 1: even though it is part of the folk car subgenre
Speaker 1: and is very influential over the full car subgenre. I
Speaker 1: think that the big three that are often referred to
Speaker 1: are sixty eighth, witch Finder, General, seventy one's Blood on
Speaker 1: Satan's Claw, and then of course seventy three is The
Speaker 1: wicker Man. But at the same time, nothing else is
Speaker 1: really like The wicker Man, even other movies that have
Speaker 1: the name The wicker Man. There are remakes of the
Speaker 1: movie we're talking about here today are nothing like it.
Speaker 3: We might have to get into the remake in part
Speaker 3: two here. I think there really just is no other
Speaker 3: movie like it. It is its own genre and perhaps
Speaker 3: still the only movie in that genre. But anyway, if
Speaker 3: you haven't seen The Wickerman yet and you want to
Speaker 3: pause here and go watch it so you can, you
Speaker 3: can see it unspoiled, and then come back, we will
Speaker 3: give you a little music break.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Looking back, I think I saw The wicker Man for
Speaker 1: the first time, probably like on I think it was
Speaker 1: A and E. So I saw it on cable. Didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was getting into, but it instantly loved it,
Speaker 1: and at some point decided, well, I need to own
Speaker 1: this forever. I'm going to buy a special edition VHS
Speaker 1: of The wicker Man in a big clamshell case. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I did, and of course it was replaced by DVDs.
Speaker 3: Just you know a few years later, did you have
Speaker 3: the version with the wooden box.
Speaker 1: I did not, but I do remember seeing that at
Speaker 1: the movie store at the mall. They had all these
Speaker 1: special editions that one I'm not sure if that was
Speaker 1: an Anchor Bay release, but this was a time period
Speaker 1: during which Anchor Bay was like the source for cool
Speaker 1: you know, DVDVHS editions of whatever your favorite genre films
Speaker 1: happened to be.
Speaker 3: I have to mention again I've said this on the
Speaker 3: show before, that someday we should come back and do
Speaker 3: a series on weird house cinema. That's just movies that
Speaker 3: had gimmick packaging, so like the release of The Wickerman
Speaker 3: and the Wooden Box that I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 3: people now just used to store whatever and.
Speaker 4: Who knows what they put in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but also like the Dead Pit with the light
Speaker 3: up eyes, and I'm sure we could get a whole
Speaker 3: list of them. Gimmick packaging on VHS tapes is just
Speaker 3: such a beautiful, beautiful thing. Like almost nothing gives me
Speaker 3: more weird, gleeful nostalgia.
Speaker 1: I know a collector or two we could reach out
Speaker 1: to for them. But yeah, The Wickerman just such a
Speaker 1: great weird film, one that succeeds in creating not merely
Speaker 1: an uncanny horror movie, but a thought provoking cinematic enigma.
Speaker 1: So not to say you can't appreciate it purely as
Speaker 1: a horror film purely as this you know, roller coaster
Speaker 1: ride and experience. But there's just a lot of rich
Speaker 1: texture to the film that leaves you to make your
Speaker 1: own interpretations. Like some of the big ones are of course,
Speaker 1: regard like what is the film saying or not saying
Speaker 1: about pagan religious beliefs, about modern Christian faith, about human
Speaker 1: religion in general.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of my favorite things about it is that
Speaker 3: the movie is saying a lot in a way, but
Speaker 3: it's not really reducible to a message. Maybe I would
Speaker 3: say it's not actually saying, it is singing, Like the
Speaker 3: story is just overflowing with meaning and has the kind
Speaker 3: of feeling of a commentary, but it is not really
Speaker 3: reducible to a message or a thesis. There's no point
Speaker 3: the movie really makes without also sort of making the
Speaker 3: opposite point. Also, obviously, the subject matter means that the
Speaker 3: story is entangled with the of religion, with religion, ritual
Speaker 3: and faith, which are three different things, but also power
Speaker 3: and violence and the law. Some people talk about this
Speaker 3: movie like they think the point of it is Christianity
Speaker 3: is bad and Paganism was better. I've seen people talk
Speaker 3: about it like they think it kind of means that.
Speaker 3: I feel like it would be hard to really say
Speaker 3: that's the point of the movie if you think about it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: at the same time, it is certainly not saying the
Speaker 3: opposite either. This movie is not Christian apologetics, and it
Speaker 3: was considered extremely offensive by many Christians when it came out.
Speaker 3: And so instead the religious themes are more it's just
Speaker 3: sort of a gardening project of religious themes. Just themes
Speaker 3: are sort of growing, and we're seeing how they grow
Speaker 3: and interact. It's like throwing Christianity and Celtic Paganism into
Speaker 3: a weird little flower bed together and seeing what pops
Speaker 3: up and how they twist around each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, because I think it's
Speaker 1: easy to reduce the film, you know, sort of boil
Speaker 1: it down to okay, here we have just a it's
Speaker 1: a foll car tale. It's uh, you know, exploitation, your
Speaker 1: standard story about someone from the city or from civilization,
Speaker 1: like going into a rural or more rural part of
Speaker 1: their own country and invoking and encountering like, you know,
Speaker 1: scary locals there.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, you see this a lot uh in fiction
Speaker 1: in general, but also in speculative fiction and weird fiction
Speaker 1: and horror. There's certainly an element of that here, not
Speaker 1: to say that it doesn't, you know, dip its toes
Speaker 1: and wade into those waters. But like you said, it
Speaker 1: presents ideas on both sides. Like there's there's certainly plenty
Speaker 1: to admire in the idealistic, close to nature, sex positive
Speaker 1: society of summer Isle, but we also come to see
Speaker 1: the dangers of their ideology. Likewise, our protagonist comes from
Speaker 1: a world of science and reason, and and we you know,
Speaker 1: we we like science and reason, and then obviously that
Speaker 1: seems to be a value that celebrated within the context
Speaker 1: of the film as well. But we also seated his
Speaker 1: world as one of, at least in his own experience,
Speaker 1: one of sexual repression and deep seated unhappiness. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, these two worlds are linked in very
Speaker 1: fundamental ways, and the film does a great job of,
Speaker 1: sometimes very subtly, sometimes more overtly, stitching those connections out.
Speaker 4: Why should we.
Speaker 3: Pause really quickly and just say, like what a one
Speaker 3: sentence plot summary is. Yeah, It's like, there is a
Speaker 3: remote Scottish island called summer Isle, and a West Highland
Speaker 3: Police officer, a police detective named Sergeant Howie, has been
Speaker 3: summoned to the island via an anonymous letter saying that
Speaker 3: a girl on the island named Rowan Morrison has gone missing.
Speaker 3: So Sergeant Howie, he is, by the way, a devoutly
Speaker 3: religious Christian police inspector. He goes to the island by
Speaker 3: seaplane to look for the missing girl and to find
Speaker 3: out more about the note he received.
Speaker 4: So that's the setup.
Speaker 3: And then one of the main things we can say
Speaker 3: about the plot branching out from there is that Sergeant
Speaker 3: how he discovers the inhabitants of this remote Scottish island
Speaker 3: are not Christians, there in fact practicing what seems to
Speaker 3: be a variant of Celtic paganism, celebrating the old gods,
Speaker 3: the joyous old gods, and some of the modes of
Speaker 3: their celebration are quite distressing to him, the basics at least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good setup here.
Speaker 3: Another thing I want to mention about the Wickerman that
Speaker 3: I'd love and find really unique about the movie is
Speaker 3: the ambiguity of the main characters. So the protagonist of
Speaker 3: the film, the detective protagonist, Sergeant Howie, is simultaneously so
Speaker 3: sympathetic and so hateable. His mission is a good one.
Speaker 3: He is trying to investigate the case of a missing girl,
Speaker 3: and we see his dedication to his mission in a
Speaker 3: way that like, you know, obviously, if a child goes
Speaker 3: me saying, it is very good to want to solve
Speaker 3: that problem and look out for the welfare of the child,
Speaker 3: which we see he is genuinely invested in. We also
Speaker 3: see the setting of summerle from his perspective and are
Speaker 3: thus frustrated with the kind of squirreliness and untrustworthiness of
Speaker 3: the people he encounters while he's trying to solve this mystery.
Speaker 3: But also Sergeant Howie's personality and worldview are so off putting.
Speaker 3: He is arrogant, self righteous, puritanical, rude, and over and
Speaker 3: over again his behavior is just so misaligned with how
Speaker 3: it seems he should be conducting the investigation. He gets
Speaker 3: sidetracked from this genuinely noble quest in order to screech
Speaker 3: at people about saying the word penis and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, like the scene where he disrupts the classroom.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: So this is not a type of protagonist I can
Speaker 3: think of many other examples of and I find it
Speaker 3: such an interesting choice. He's kind of like a combination
Speaker 3: of like Hercule Poirot, but not as but without the
Speaker 3: virtuosity and detective work. I'll come back to that in
Speaker 3: a minute. But then also, I don't know, like one
Speaker 3: of the one of the judges in The Crucible or
Speaker 3: like the Witchfinder General. He's like a totally unsympathetically puritanical prude.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so do we like him, like.
Speaker 3: Not really sometimes not at all, But also we we
Speaker 3: sympathize with what he's doing, and we want him to
Speaker 3: find out what happened to the girl and solve the mystery,
Speaker 3: because we do repeatedly since that something treacherous is afoot
Speaker 3: and that Sergeant Howie might be the only person on
Speaker 3: this island who is actually trying to do what's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that's that's important to realize and something
Speaker 1: that I think you can sometimes lose track of if
Speaker 1: you haven't seen the film in a long time, or
Speaker 1: rather if you've seen the film and you know the
Speaker 1: general plot, you know what's going to happen and you're
Speaker 1: rewatching it. But yeah, it's important to note like what
Speaker 1: he's not like, He's not a pure punchline like he's
Speaker 1: not a he's not a straight man to set up
Speaker 1: a joke. Yeah, and we'll talk more about the tone
Speaker 1: here in a second. He's also not a character that
Speaker 1: deserves punishment like it's. It's you can easily imagine a cheap,
Speaker 1: kind of like easy comics Tales from the Crypt version
Speaker 1: of this exact story, where his downfall is directly connected
Speaker 1: to a specific action or choice on his part, or
Speaker 1: a deep seated character flaw or something. And that's not
Speaker 1: really the case either, or at least it's not that
Speaker 1: one thing that fits into the the you know, the
Speaker 1: little box in the in the Tales of the Crypt
Speaker 1: comic book. You know, it's it's broader than that.
Speaker 3: It's more complicated, right, I know exactly what you're saying. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's not like a Tails from the Crypt protagonist. To
Speaker 3: is the classic format of that character is it is
Speaker 3: someone who has done something quite evil, is like flawed
Speaker 3: in a way that that spells their own doom. They're
Speaker 3: going to get a kind of karmic punch, and we
Speaker 3: are satisfied to see them get it.
Speaker 4: Howie is not like that.
Speaker 3: His unlikeability is shallower and more esthetic. Again, it's just
Speaker 3: that he is like a rude, arrogant, aggressive, prudish, self
Speaker 3: righteous jerk. But again I come back to he is
Speaker 3: a character like that, but we're with him because we
Speaker 3: sense something is very wrong on this island and he
Speaker 3: might be the only person who's able to do something
Speaker 3: about it. But then again, is there something wrong on
Speaker 3: this island. Another way the movie really keeps you guessing
Speaker 3: is the characterization of the people positioned as Sergeant Howie's antagonists,
Speaker 3: like Lord Summerle played by Christopher Lee in a masterful
Speaker 3: performance we'll talk about more as we go on, or
Speaker 3: Miss Rose played by Diane Cilento by sort of the
Speaker 3: default structure of the mystery narrative. These are the suspects
Speaker 3: in the mystery disappearance of Rowen Morison, and they're so
Speaker 3: interesting and likable and polite and have thoughtful perspectives, and
Speaker 3: they're sometimes just positively jolly in the face of Howie
Speaker 3: being like rude and aggressive to them. And I don't know,
Speaker 3: like all the antagonists are so lovable even when it
Speaker 3: feels like they're covering something up or not being forthright
Speaker 3: about what they know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, another weird thing about the characters.
Speaker 3: This is one of the only detective stories I can
Speaker 3: think of. In fact, maybe it's the only one. Could
Speaker 3: you even think of a possible counterexample? I don't know
Speaker 3: one of the only detective stories I know of where
Speaker 3: the protagonist is not only unlikable but not particularly competent. Right,
Speaker 3: this is what You always have a detective story about
Speaker 3: somebody who has powers of reasoning and insights, Sherlock Holmes
Speaker 3: or Poirot. You know, detectives who are skilled at solving
Speaker 3: a complicated puzzle. Sergeant Howie is clearly shown in the
Speaker 3: movie to be not a very good detective at all,
Speaker 3: and I think this is an essential part of his characterization.
Speaker 3: He is constantly missing important clues and constantly making bad
Speaker 3: choices that lead to dead ends in his pursuit of information.
Speaker 3: I think one of the main feelings that the audience
Speaker 3: will generally have about Sergeant Howie is the feeling of pity.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh boy, this poor guy, he is out
Speaker 3: of his depth.
Speaker 4: Yeah, isn't that.
Speaker 3: So strange to have a what is essentially a detective
Speaker 3: story and that's a key feature of your protagonist. Can
Speaker 3: you think of another story like that?
Speaker 1: The only examples I can think of are examples where
Speaker 1: the character is played for humor. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 1: where we should probably talk about the tone of the film,
Speaker 1: and I'll just goe and mentioned like humor wise, there
Speaker 1: are lots of things I think you can you can
Speaker 1: you will find humorous in The wicker Man, and I
Speaker 1: think those things are intended. And yet at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's not a comedy. It is played straight, and certainly
Speaker 1: Sergeant Howie's character is played straight like it's you could
Speaker 1: you could easily imagine a character like this tweaked into
Speaker 1: more of like a Michael Scott from the office to area,
Speaker 1: you know, or various like bumbling detective comedies we've seen
Speaker 1: over the years, and that's not what this film is.
Speaker 1: And of course as well as we will continue to
Speaker 1: discuss like it does defy easy categorization in a number
Speaker 1: of ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like the way you put it about the humor.
Speaker 4: I think that's right. It's like, there is a lot.
Speaker 3: Of intended humor in the movie, and it's ironic in nature.
Speaker 3: It's not in the form of overt jokes and gags.
Speaker 3: But anyway, just all these character dynamics, like the unlikeability
Speaker 3: of the protagonist, the incompetence of the protagonist, and the
Speaker 3: likability and thoughtfulness of his antagonists. All these things really
Speaker 3: keep you guessing, or they certainly did keep me guessing
Speaker 3: when I first watched Again. When I first saw this,
Speaker 3: I really had no idea where the movie was going
Speaker 3: and was floored by the ending, the famous surprise ending.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And that's a testament to a film like
Speaker 1: this if you're along for the ride, even if you
Speaker 1: are beginning to wonder, like, where could this ride possibly
Speaker 1: be going?
Speaker 3: Now, we've said several times we want to come back
Speaker 3: to the tone of the movie. I think I said
Speaker 3: at the beginning that it's questionable whether you should really
Speaker 3: call this movie a horror movie. When people call it horror,
Speaker 3: I think they're thinking mainly about the ending, which is
Speaker 3: absolutely horrifying. But for like ninety ninety five percent of
Speaker 3: the movie, does it really feel like a horror film?
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I think most of the runtime it feels more like
Speaker 3: a bizarre, whimsical, religiously themed mystery.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and even just feels at times feels like
Speaker 1: a goofy musical, but not at like a laugh like
Speaker 1: a horr horror horror goofy musical, but just like you
Speaker 1: might ask yourself, what am I watching? My wife had
Speaker 1: never seen it before, and she watched part of it
Speaker 1: with me last night, and I think that was kind
Speaker 1: of her reaction, Like I was like, do you want
Speaker 1: to watch part of this full Carr movie from the
Speaker 1: early nineteen seventies, And she's like sure, and then she's like,
Speaker 1: what's going on?
Speaker 4: This is funny.
Speaker 3: Last night, Rachel and I also showed this movie to
Speaker 3: somebody for the first time and they had a similar reaction, though,
Speaker 3: like what is going on for much of the time,
Speaker 3: But I can report there was a big thumbs up
Speaker 3: in the end. But yeah, it's so so. It's got
Speaker 3: that weird not horror at all tone for most of
Speaker 3: the runtime and then suddenly bam the ending, which is
Speaker 3: I think one of the bleakest, most terrifying scenes I
Speaker 3: can think of in all of movie history. It is
Speaker 3: at once beautiful and terrible. It makes your blood run
Speaker 3: cold and then warm and then cold again.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty powerful, and I in terms of
Speaker 1: films we've watched on Weird House, I'd put it up
Speaker 1: there with Seconds. Yeah, in terms of its impact. I
Speaker 1: also want to add that even in the film's restored state,
Speaker 1: which is generally how you'll find it, I assume streaming
Speaker 1: and certainly on home media, there's a rawness to the
Speaker 1: footage that at times contributes to this feeling that we're
Speaker 1: watching documentary footage of some sort, like it's a documentary
Speaker 1: about the way people actually live on this island. Also,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of non actors in there and musicians,
Speaker 1: as we'll note, which adds to that feel like I'm
Speaker 1: not watching actors, I'm watching real people and this must
Speaker 1: be how they live. The production design, the locations are
Speaker 1: all a part of this, and you could also probably
Speaker 1: compare this to some rather different films from the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies also have a similar feel, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
Speaker 1: though again very different sort of horror film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, though this movie has a lot more of a
Speaker 3: community feel than Texas Chainsaw Masacar does, which is very isolated.
Speaker 4: And you're only going to meet.
Speaker 3: A few weird characters, but it has that documentary visual style.
Speaker 3: What you mentioned about the presence of non actors is
Speaker 3: I feel like a big has a big impact on
Speaker 3: the ambience of this film. There are scenes in a
Speaker 3: pub or out in a you know, on a street
Speaker 3: beside a harbor, where lots of people are milling around
Speaker 3: on screen, and most of them are clearly not actors.
Speaker 3: They're people kind of looking weird and confused and mumbling,
Speaker 3: and it contributes greatly to a sense of reality. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 3: And it also it makes the important characters pop more,
Speaker 3: like when you know, all these kind of like old
Speaker 3: men who are just kind of mumbling their lines a
Speaker 3: little bit as they're standing around outside the end, and
Speaker 3: then we meet Lord Summerle and suddenly it's for Lee
Speaker 3: and you're like awed by his presence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Another thing that is kind you could think of as
Speaker 3: just an extension of the very unusual tone of the
Speaker 3: movie is the fact that it's also sort of a
Speaker 3: musical like. It not only prominently features music with lyrics
Speaker 3: on the soundtrack, it has several diegetic musical numbers where
Speaker 3: the characters sing and even sing into the camera. Is
Speaker 3: there another horror movie like that?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't think of another film, certainly a horror
Speaker 1: film that uses music quite the same way.
Speaker 3: One thing that I think is interesting about the use
Speaker 3: of music is that only the characters who live on
Speaker 3: summerle seem to know that they're in a musical. So
Speaker 3: like normally, if you're in a musical, all the characters sing,
Speaker 3: or all of the major characters sing. The protagonist certainly sings,
Speaker 3: But Sergeant Howie does not sing except we see him
Speaker 3: again it's diegetic music. We see him singing him at
Speaker 3: church at the beginning of the movie. That's just a
Speaker 3: scene where he's in church. He never like looks into
Speaker 3: the camera and sings the way say britt Eklund does
Speaker 3: or the way Christopher Lee does. So it's only the
Speaker 3: Pagans that are allowed to actually be in a musical
Speaker 3: as musical players. Sergeant Howie is just sort of living
Speaker 3: in their musical world without getting to be an agent
Speaker 3: of music himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, what if he had sung though, that would
Speaker 1: have been interesting taken in, taken more of it, like
Speaker 1: a Schmigadoon direction where he realizes that he has to
Speaker 1: sing in order to in order to connect with these characters.
Speaker 3: M yeah, maybe things would have turned out differently for him.
Speaker 1: He does sing a little the end. He does sing
Speaker 1: a little the end. I think, well, we'll get back
Speaker 1: to that. And while he may sing just a little bit.
Speaker 1: He never dances, and dance is also a big part
Speaker 1: of a number of these these musical numbers where we
Speaker 1: see some sort of ritual dance taking place.
Speaker 3: In fact, at one point when he's in disguise, he
Speaker 3: gets yelled at for not dancing because he's in disguise
Speaker 3: going down the May Day Parade and uh at one
Speaker 3: and Christopher Lee turns and sees him just kind of
Speaker 3: wandering down the road instead of, I don't know, doing
Speaker 3: whatever he's supposed to be doing, and he yells at him.
Speaker 4: Cut some capers, man, you.
Speaker 1: Got time to glance, you got time to dance?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I don't think we can possibly do an
Speaker 3: elevator pitch for Wickerman.
Speaker 1: No, it pretty much stands on its own. So let's
Speaker 1: let's go ahead in here just a little bit from
Speaker 1: the what I believe is the original trailer. I got
Speaker 1: a tail unfold whose lightest work would head O up?
Speaker 1: And I'm so pretest young blood.
Speaker 4: I am here to investigate the disappearance.
Speaker 1: I'm a young girl.
Speaker 4: Where is Ron Morrison?
Speaker 3: If Ruin Morrison existed, we would.
Speaker 2: Not I should expect Manda read the.
Speaker 1: Name of God woman, What kind of mother are you
Speaker 1: that can stand by and so your own child slaughtered?
Speaker 2: You are the fool, little Harry, the liars.
Speaker 1: You are despicable little liars. Where if Morrison, if Ruin
Speaker 1: Marrison existed, we would.
Speaker 4: Not I should spect Manda, she was bird?
Speaker 1: You are the fool?
Speaker 4: Where is Rowan Morrison?
Speaker 2: Oh my god?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: If you would like to see The wicker Man again.
Speaker 1: Widely available in all formats, and it's could following has
Speaker 1: seen multiple special editions released over the years. There have
Speaker 1: been a few different cuts. I'm not sure to what
Speaker 1: degree we're going to get into talking about different cuts
Speaker 1: of the film. I think there are like three major versions,
Speaker 1: like a theatrical version, and then they added some minutes
Speaker 1: to it, and then they took away a few minutes.
Speaker 1: But definitely watch it, and you know the best format
Speaker 1: you can get. Maybe shopple around a little bit on
Speaker 1: those different forms. I watched it in a restored form
Speaker 1: on Blu ray one that I rented from Atlanta's own
Speaker 1: video Drome from their full car sub section.
Speaker 4: Nice.
Speaker 1: But I don't know which edition it was. I know
Speaker 1: it had like baked in trailers at the beginning, which
Speaker 1: I did not like. I feel like especially now. It
Speaker 1: makes me think it was maybe a slightly older Blu ray,
Speaker 1: because more and more Blu rays these days, I feel
Speaker 1: like are treated like the premium item they are, and
Speaker 1: they're like less tied to timely trailers from pictures.
Speaker 3: Wait, what was what were your baked in trailers for?
Speaker 3: Mine was for a re release of American Psycho. Yes, yes, okay,
Speaker 3: so we've got the same disc, do we?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: Okay, So then you probably watched what's called the final cut?
Speaker 3: I think so, And the final cut is I think
Speaker 3: the latest of the major cuts of the film. Did
Speaker 3: your version also have some scenes that were in much
Speaker 3: lower film quality than most of the movie?
Speaker 1: I believe? So? Yeah, restored sequences, yes.
Speaker 3: So, like the scene where Christopher Lee is outside the
Speaker 3: inn at night talking to a slug about how he
Speaker 3: wants to be like him.
Speaker 1: Oh so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was not in the original version of the
Speaker 3: movie that I saw. I think the first one I
Speaker 3: saw was the theatrical cut. But so that's a restored
Speaker 3: scene that the film does not look great, But I'm
Speaker 3: glad it's there and it's worth it to have, even
Speaker 3: though it's cutting back and forth between extremely different levels
Speaker 3: of fidelity.
Speaker 4: It's it's worth it to have that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it helps too that the best fidelity in
Speaker 1: the film is not like so great that it feels
Speaker 1: as jarring, or at least that's the impression I had. Alright,
Speaker 1: Let's get into the people behind this film a bit,
Speaker 1: starting with the director, of course. The director was Robin Hardy,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty nine through twenty sixteen. English director
Speaker 1: who started out directing for the National Film Board of Canada,
Speaker 1: then Yeah Yeah, then PBS aligned so O World Theater,
Speaker 1: before moving to London to partner with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer
Speaker 1: to co found an advertising agency. The wicker Man, again,
Speaker 1: released in seventy three, filmed in seventy two, I believe,
Speaker 1: was his first feature directorial project and by far his
Speaker 1: most impactful. He only followed it up with two other films,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six is The Fantasist and twenty eleven's The
Speaker 1: Wicker Tree, based on his own novel, Cowboys for a Christ.
Speaker 1: He also has a story credit on nineteen eighty eight's
Speaker 1: Forbidden Son. After The Wickerman, he returned to the US
Speaker 1: and mostly wrote historical novels and worked. According to his
Speaker 1: obituary in The Guardian as a consultant in the historical
Speaker 1: theme park business. David Piner is the novelist the novel
Speaker 1: ritual from nineteen sixty seven. This apparently is what they like,
Speaker 1: they paid to adapt it. It's not one of these
Speaker 1: cases where they just kind of ripped it off, like
Speaker 1: they paid to do the adaptation but then ultimately deviated
Speaker 1: from a lot of it. I haven't read it, but
Speaker 1: I'm to understand it. You know, it concerns, maybe on
Speaker 1: some level, the same skeleton of a plot line where
Speaker 1: a police investigator is checking out some rural community that
Speaker 1: ends up having some you know, pagan elements to their
Speaker 1: religious rights.
Speaker 3: No way to confirm this, just to guess, but I
Speaker 3: like to imagine that this movie was at least in
Speaker 3: part based on something from Christopher Lee's apocryphal collection of
Speaker 3: occult Tomes.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. Now, Anthony Shaffer that we mentioned,
Speaker 1: who wrote the screenplay. He lived nineteen twenty six through
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, British writer whose previous credits included
Speaker 1: Alfred Hitchcock's nineteen seventy two film Frenzy, which, if you
Speaker 1: haven't seen it, seen it as quite a solid psycho
Speaker 1: killer film starring John Finch and Barry Foster.
Speaker 4: I've actually never seen that one. I love Hitchcock, but.
Speaker 1: Oh it's good. It hasn't as I recall it as
Speaker 1: a really nice long shot.
Speaker 3: At one point I had some movies with those yet
Speaker 3: was this his second to last movie?
Speaker 1: It was pretty late.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also Schaeffer wrote the two man play turned film
Speaker 1: Sleuth from the same year, starring Lawrence Olivier and Michael Kine,
Speaker 1: and he'd later work on Let's See. There was a
Speaker 1: whole series of seventies and eighties Agatha Christie film adaptations
Speaker 1: in which Peter Eustonoff played Birot and his identical twin brother.
Speaker 1: Peter Shaffer, who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: was also an acclaimed screenwriter whose stage in screen credits
Speaker 1: include Equis and Amedeus Wow Talented Siblings.
Speaker 3: Yes, there is a lot to love about The Wickerman,
Speaker 3: but I think it has a particularly fantastic screenplay for
Speaker 3: a horror film. Not to insult horror films generally, but
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a lover of horror, but I'm aware
Speaker 3: that a lot of horror writing does it is attracted
Speaker 3: to cliches like a magnet sort of, and this screenplay,
Speaker 3: even though now we live in a world where a
Speaker 3: lot of other stories I think have copied a lot
Speaker 3: from The Wickerman, but at least for its own time,
Speaker 3: incredibly unusual and unique and remarkably I think, free of cliches,
Speaker 3: just an original and authentic exploration.
Speaker 1: Absolutely all right. Getting into the cast here playing Sergeant Howie,
Speaker 1: we have Edward Woodwarton, who lived nineteen thirty through two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, British actor of stage, screen and TV,
Speaker 1: who at the time was best known in the UK
Speaker 1: for his portrayal of secret Service agent Callen on the
Speaker 1: TV show of the same name. Now, when I first
Speaker 1: watched The wicker Man, I knew him mostly from advertisements
Speaker 1: for the TV show The Equalizer, which ran eighty five
Speaker 1: through eighty nine.
Speaker 4: What does an equalizer do?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not a show I ever actually watched,
Speaker 1: but I know I just was like, well, that's the equalizer.
Speaker 1: He equalizes.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a piece of audio equipment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if the Equalizer on the TV
Speaker 1: show is a cop if he's like a fixer, like
Speaker 1: which side of the law he's aligned with. Is he
Speaker 1: a secret agent, I'm not sure, but he equalizes, so
Speaker 1: there's some implied neutrality there.
Speaker 3: I guess I've got a seventy nine two equalizer man.
Speaker 1: He has a ton of credits, though, including nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four's Beckett, nineteen eighty's Breaker Morant that he had the
Speaker 1: title role in that. He's in nineteen eighty four as
Speaker 1: a Christmas carol. He plays the ghost of chrism Is
Speaker 1: Present in that one. This is one of the Christmas
Speaker 1: carols that my family watched a lot when I was
Speaker 1: a kid.
Speaker 4: That's so funny.
Speaker 3: The ghost of Christmas Present is supposed to be jolly
Speaker 3: and full of good cheer, which is not at all
Speaker 3: in the role I'm familiar with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's a very different role. He pops up
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven's Hot Fuzz. His only other
Speaker 1: horror films is that I'm aware of, are nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: one's Bloodsuckers and nineteen eighty two's The Appointment. And I
Speaker 1: would also be remiss if I didn't mention that he
Speaker 1: plays Sol in the nineteen eighty five King David movie.
Speaker 1: That's the one that has George Eastman in it.
Speaker 3: This is like the second reference to this in like
Speaker 3: three weeks.
Speaker 1: Everything comes back to George Eastman. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think Edward Woodward should get a lot of love
Speaker 3: for this performance because it's kind of a thankless role.
Speaker 3: Like it is so much easier to love the Pagans
Speaker 3: in the movie, to love Christopher Lee, and to love
Speaker 3: Diane Cilento and Ingrid Pitt, you know, all the local
Speaker 3: characters who were sort of the colorful, interesting wild ones.
Speaker 3: As we've said many times, the protagonist of this movie
Speaker 3: is not very likable. He's kind of a stick in
Speaker 3: the mud. He's kind of a jerk, and so I
Speaker 3: think it's very easy to miss how important the portrayal
Speaker 3: of this character is to the effect of the story
Speaker 3: in the end. And Edward Woodward is great in the role.
Speaker 3: He doesn't try to steal the show and make his
Speaker 3: character more likable than he needs to be. Instead, he's
Speaker 3: exactly what is called for by the script, and he's great.
Speaker 4: He's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's a complex role. It's arguably far more
Speaker 1: complex than any of the other characters that we encounter
Speaker 1: in the picture. I was watching an interview with the
Speaker 1: director and Hardy really gives a lot of credit to
Speaker 1: Woodward for creating this character on the screen, Like he says,
Speaker 1: you know, like with Christopher Lee's character, we had these
Speaker 1: parameters set out and Christopher Lee delivered, you know, knocked
Speaker 1: out of the park. But there was a lot to
Speaker 1: Sergeant Howie that really had to be created in the performance,
Speaker 1: and he Woodward all the credit in the world for
Speaker 1: doing that. That's right.
Speaker 3: A lot of how we feel about how he isn't
Speaker 3: even in his lines. It's in kind of facial expressions, reactions.
Speaker 3: He brings such a sense of visible frustration to the
Speaker 3: character in every scene almost you can just see him
Speaker 3: just kind of like shaking with annoyance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and wrestling with what he's seeing. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of he's not telling you his internal monologue
Speaker 1: about how conflicted he may feel about certain things, or
Speaker 1: tempted he may feel about certain things. He's just in
Speaker 1: the performance, you know.
Speaker 3: When he's trying to say hide to maybe a prurient
Speaker 3: sexual interest that he knows he should not have, but
Speaker 3: is part of his character as well. So, yeah, totally agree,
Speaker 3: Woodward is excellent.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to Lord Summerle who, as
Speaker 1: we've been mentioning is played by the great Christopher Lee,
Speaker 1: who of nineteen twenty two through twenty fifteen. This is
Speaker 1: our seventh Weird House Cinema selection featuring Sir Christopher Lee,
Speaker 1: you know as we as you know, best known for
Speaker 1: such roles as Sarimon the White and Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 1: Dracula in multiple Hammer Horror films and some non Hammer
Speaker 1: horror films, and Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels.
Speaker 1: I just caught Revenge of the Sith on the big
Speaker 1: screen in its re release, and his performance is brief
Speaker 1: but very memorable, has a nice little arc to it,
Speaker 1: probably I would say, arguably stands out among his very
Speaker 1: late career performances.
Speaker 3: I've said this before that I'm not as big a
Speaker 3: fan of the Star Wars prequels, though not to poo
Speaker 3: poo anybody who does love them. But for me, at
Speaker 3: least even in my least favorite, which is Attack of
Speaker 3: the Clones, when Christopher Lee shows up, it's just it's
Speaker 3: a whole other movie now, Like I love him, and yeah,
Speaker 3: so Christopher Lee is one of my favorites, but this
Speaker 3: is it's got to be. This is my all time favorite.
Speaker 3: Christopher Lee role the Wickerman is head and shoulders above
Speaker 3: them all to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and this is an opinion that Christopher
Speaker 1: Lee shared as well. By most accounts, the film was
Speaker 1: reportedly a real passion project for him. We mentioned how
Speaker 1: he was pretty much in the room, being one of
Speaker 1: the people who brought it together to begin with, and
Speaker 1: he claimed, and I have no reason to doubt him
Speaker 1: to have waived off any payment for the role. That
Speaker 1: basically like they couldn't afford him, they couldn't afford his rate.
Speaker 1: And he's like, well, don't worry about it. I want
Speaker 1: this film to be made. And then when the film
Speaker 1: studio opted to release it in the UK without a
Speaker 1: screening as part of a double feature, the second half
Speaker 1: of the double feature with Don't Look Now.
Speaker 4: Which is a great horror movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a very very well received picture. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's these are two strange kind of
Speaker 1: an odd match to pair them together, Yes, but that
Speaker 1: kind of also shows you that the studio seemingly didn't
Speaker 1: really know what to do with the film, and we're
Speaker 1: just kind of like, well, just put it out there,
Speaker 1: we're not going to screen it. But Lee then personally
Speaker 1: calls all the film critics that he knew of to
Speaker 1: encourage them to see the film and offering to buy
Speaker 1: their it if they needed him to.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's great U And I love that because I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure actually I don't know what the original critical
Speaker 3: reception was, but I know the studio that owned that
Speaker 3: owned the Wickerman hated it when when it was coming
Speaker 3: to I think it was em I like they famously
Speaker 3: like were panicking because they thought the movie was so
Speaker 3: bad and they were trying to find ways to avoid
Speaker 3: releasing it or to to cut it down. I think
Speaker 3: I think they just hated what they had on their
Speaker 3: hands and they didn't realize that it was a masterpiece.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there there. This seems to definitely be the
Speaker 1: be true to some extent, but then there's also some
Speaker 1: seems to be some myth making on top of that.
Speaker 4: Okay, you know, like I.
Speaker 1: Said, this is a film that's been very popular for
Speaker 1: a long time. There's been a lot of interviews and
Speaker 1: a lot of comments. Like I saw one story that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm casting some doubt on that Rod Stewart tried
Speaker 1: to buy all the copies of it at one point
Speaker 1: so he could destroy his then girlfriend's nude scene, things
Speaker 1: like that, I don't know that, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: pass that by.
Speaker 3: Was he dating britt Ecklund, I believe so, Yes, Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also it said that later on, when the film was
Speaker 1: released in the United States and seventy four, Lee flew
Speaker 1: to the States on his own dime to promote it
Speaker 1: as well, and would just appear on basically any show
Speaker 1: to talk about the Wickerman. That just filled me with happiness.
Speaker 1: That's gorgeous, and as we've been saying, it is a
Speaker 1: delightful performance from Lee, which I think is saying something
Speaker 1: because while Lee is always a fine screen presence, he
Speaker 1: almost always plays a rather grim and serious character, often
Speaker 1: with a malicious glint in his eyes, and for much
Speaker 1: of the film, the Lord Summerle that we experience is
Speaker 1: a joyous, care free figure. I swear Lee, who is
Speaker 1: I think around fifty at the time, really feels younger
Speaker 1: and certainly more energetic in this role than anything else
Speaker 1: I've seen him in from before or after this picture.
Speaker 3: He has the energy of a twenty two year old
Speaker 3: hippie who does clown school. Yes, yeah, he's just he's
Speaker 3: just magical. In the movie, he's bursting with positive intensity,
Speaker 3: occasionally turning threatening and then just turning very friendly and
Speaker 3: charming again. He has, in fact, he has kind of
Speaker 3: the quality of a pagan god. You can you can
Speaker 3: feel him almost becoming superhumanly enlarged and striding over the fields,
Speaker 3: beaming down sunshine at everyone around him.
Speaker 1: That's good, that's good. Yeah. So these are our two
Speaker 1: main characters, I guess in the film, but we have
Speaker 1: a number of very interesting supporting roles, starting with I
Speaker 1: believe we mentioned her already, but Diane Cilento plays Miss Rose,
Speaker 1: who I believe is the town teacher. She's she's teaching
Speaker 1: to I don't know what other like a lot of
Speaker 1: it's a small town, so a lot of people have
Speaker 1: multiple roles here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, double double booked on a lot of occupations in
Speaker 3: the town.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Miss miss Rose is a great character in Diane Cilento
Speaker 3: is excellent in this role. I mean, I'm gonna sound
Speaker 3: repetitive with the cast because everybody's so good, but she
Speaker 3: is great. She has such a gracious, almost flowing water
Speaker 3: kind of way of reacting to Sergeant Howie's aggressive inquiry.
Speaker 3: You know, she's at many points she is resisting his investigation,
Speaker 3: but it's just hard to feel like she could possibly
Speaker 3: be a bad guy.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she like a number of the other townsfolk
Speaker 1: that we meet, they're they're very likable and they seem
Speaker 1: very sensible in the face of his investigation.
Speaker 3: Yes, they're always making good points against yeah so.
Speaker 1: Cialento lived nineteen thirty two through twenty eleven Australian born
Speaker 1: actress of stage and screen who is nominated for an
Speaker 1: Oscar in nineteen sixty four for her supporting performance in
Speaker 1: the movie Tom Jones. Her other credits include sixty five's
Speaker 1: The Agony and the Ecstasy, nineteen sixty seven Zombre, and
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two ZPG. She married Anthony Schaeffer in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five, and from her previous marriage, she was the
Speaker 1: mother of Jason Connery. I've read that she was a
Speaker 1: self professed white witch at the time of the Wickerman's
Speaker 1: filming and was personally involved in various details, including the
Speaker 1: fire dance. And at one point there's a tarot card
Speaker 1: on the ceiling, and I believe I've read that she
Speaker 1: drew that or painted it.
Speaker 4: Oh cool. Oh.
Speaker 1: And then of course there's the innkeeper's daughter, Willow played
Speaker 1: by Britt Eklund.
Speaker 3: Also great britt Ekland gets a full on musical number
Speaker 3: where she like turns and looks into the camera while
Speaker 3: she's singing Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Born nineteen forty two, Swedish actress, model, and singer,
Speaker 1: who certainly delivers charisma and sex appeal for several key
Speaker 1: scenes in the film, a character who, in Lord Somerle's words,
Speaker 1: is the embodiment of the Goddess of Love. Ecklund was
Speaker 1: a rather major celebrity of the day and appeared in
Speaker 1: some notable early nineteen seventies films, including seventy ones Get Carter,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy Two's Asylum, and nineteen seventy four Is the
Speaker 1: Man with the Golden Gun, which of course also featured
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I watched that movie as a kind of it's
Speaker 3: a James Bond movie. Yes, probably one of the worst
Speaker 3: James Bond movies. It's not very good, but as I
Speaker 3: say about some movies on here, it's not very good,
Speaker 3: but it's a good time. It's just a nice little
Speaker 3: wicker Man reunion to watch every now and then. I
Speaker 3: seem to recall the character she plays in The Man
Speaker 3: with the Golden Gun is supposed to be kind of
Speaker 3: not very smart, like she's kind of always like clumsily.
Speaker 3: She's like a spy, but she's constantly like whoops, getting
Speaker 3: bumped into the trunk of a car. And yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't know, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but
Speaker 3: it's not a great movie. But in the Wickerman, she
Speaker 3: is not dumb. She's rather crafty.
Speaker 1: Actually yeah she uh, you know, she behaves almost like
Speaker 1: a like a siren character. Yeah, and she has at
Speaker 1: least one key scene that features nudity, and I want
Speaker 1: to want to highlight that. A lot of times, you know,
Speaker 1: the nudity and films of this era and certainly of
Speaker 1: the genre or are more about pure titillation. And you know,
Speaker 1: not to say that these scenes are removed of titillation,
Speaker 1: but but there's a there's a lot more going on here,
Speaker 1: and I feel like they're they're overall very well crafted.
Speaker 1: In the extra that I featured, Hardy talks a little
Speaker 1: bit about the key Brett Acklin nude scene and how
Speaker 1: they shot it and all, and there's some there are
Speaker 1: actually some fun stories about that where they actually had
Speaker 1: to send off for someone to come in to be
Speaker 1: the butt double for that scene they had to get
Speaker 1: somebody from a like a nightclub in Scotland. Oh, that's funny, but.
Speaker 3: We should say we've been speaking about them like they
Speaker 3: might be two different scenes. The nude scene is also
Speaker 3: the musical number Yes, yes, yeah, and it is the
Speaker 3: scene where britt Eklund is really dedicated to making Sergeant
Speaker 3: Howie starts sinning.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's in another room. But this the end
Speaker 1: has very thin walls and you can hear everything, like
Speaker 1: the people downstairs can hear everything. Howid he can hear everything? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get into that when we talk about the specific scene,
Speaker 1: all right. And then rounding out the our trio of
Speaker 1: blonde seventy starlets in this picture, we have Ingrid Pitt
Speaker 1: playing the librarian. She lived nineteen thirty seven through twenty ten.
Speaker 1: Something of a Hammer horror regular, the Polish born actress,
Speaker 1: who started out on the East Berlin stage, is best
Speaker 1: known for roles in such films as nineteen sixty eights
Speaker 1: Where Eagles Dare, nineteen seventies The Vampire Lovers, and nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one's Countessed Dracula. Her other credits include episodes of
Speaker 1: Doctor Who nineteen seventy one is the House that Dripped
Speaker 1: the Blood and eineteen eighty five's Transmutations. We'll have more
Speaker 1: to say about her when we talk about the specific
Speaker 1: one of the main scenes that features the librarian.
Speaker 3: Yes, now you mentioned the character of Willow McGregor. That's
Speaker 3: britt Eklund. But we also meet her father, the Innkeeper
Speaker 3: aka the Landlord, who is an extremely odd critter.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Played by Lindsey Kemp, who lived nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: eight through twenty eighteen. He was a British dancer, actor, teacher,
Speaker 1: mime artist and choreographer. His other acting credits include seventy
Speaker 1: two Savage Messiah, a nineteen eighty four TV adaptation of
Speaker 1: A Midsummer Night's Dream in which he plays Puck, and
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight's Velvet gold Mine. Very interesting character in
Speaker 1: his own right. He was a mentor to both David
Speaker 1: Bowie and Kate Bush.
Speaker 3: Hats off to him. I love every minute he's on screen.
Speaker 3: He's got this wild kind of raised eyebrow that's just
Speaker 3: always like, oh, you know you're a policeman, are you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's great. There is always that kind of like
Speaker 1: a sly judgment taking place with him. Yeah, wonderful little role.
Speaker 1: I mean all the so all the towns folk are great,
Speaker 1: the non actors, the musicians, and then the various character
Speaker 1: actors here and there. One that really stands out though,
Speaker 1: is Aubrey Morris playing the old gardener Slash the grave Digger. Yes,
Speaker 1: a great British character actor whose supporting roles include films
Speaker 1: like seventy one's a Clockwork, Orange Blood from the Mummy's
Speaker 1: Tomb and Lystomania, also nineteen eighty five's Life Force and
Speaker 1: The She Creature from two thousand and one. I would
Speaker 1: say one of the most memorable locals we meet in
Speaker 1: the film.
Speaker 3: He has a fantastic moment where Sergeant Howie asks him
Speaker 3: where their minister is and he just says minister and
Speaker 3: starts laughing and walks away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's really good. He we meet him in the graveyard,
Speaker 1: a great scene of the graveyard. Well we'll probably get
Speaker 1: to but yeah. He lived nineteen twenty six through twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: All right, Now, one more local man that I want
Speaker 1: to mention here there's a fishmonger character, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I one hundred percent remember the fishmonger. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the fishmonger?
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 1: It's possible his scene was even cut. I'm not certain.
Speaker 1: If nothing else, we may see him in the background.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of rosy cheeked, gray haired, partly
Speaker 3: balding old men who stand around in the background of
Speaker 3: many scenes at the pub, at the harbor and so
Speaker 3: forth at the May Day celebration and don't really get
Speaker 3: in many individual moments.
Speaker 4: Of their own.
Speaker 3: But it's a but overall, it's a big community ensemble,
Speaker 3: and so there are a lot of characters you're not
Speaker 3: going to remember very specifically.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, the Fishmonger is played by John Young, who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen ninety six. And this is
Speaker 1: the guy who played the modern day historian that A
Speaker 1: Night murders in nineteen seventy five's Monty Python and the
Speaker 1: Holy Grail.
Speaker 4: Oh I remember him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, he shows up like it's, you know, a
Speaker 1: television show about medieval history, and then at one point
Speaker 1: a Night rides past him and slays him with a sword. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good gag. Yeah, as John Young. He was
Speaker 1: also in a Life of Brian in seventy nine and
Speaker 1: eighty one's Chariots of Fire. Oh, and he's also in
Speaker 1: Time Badmit's all right, and then coming back around to
Speaker 1: the music, Paul Giovanni was the composer. He lived nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three through nineteen ninety and yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: where we're going to continue to say about the music
Speaker 1: of The wicker Man, a film that makes terrific use
Speaker 1: of digetic music, contributing heavily to the uneasiness of the
Speaker 1: film and also creating that feeling of uncertainty regarding what
Speaker 1: sort of musical film are we watching. Paul Giovanni was
Speaker 1: an American playwright, actor, director, a singer and musician, and
Speaker 1: we see him in the film as well the man
Speaker 1: singing gently Johnny and the green Man in Oh.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that was Paul Giovanni. He's a handsome fella.
Speaker 3: He's a good singer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he also sings on corn Riggs and Landlord's daughter.
Speaker 1: Giovanni wrote the music and much of the lyrics. I
Speaker 1: think Cornriggs is adapted from a Robert Burns song. But
Speaker 1: this was his only musical film credit, but his plays
Speaker 1: include The Crucifer of Blood, which was adapted in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one for a TV film starring Charlton Heston as
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes. What, Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: That is one of the weirdest pieces of casting I've
Speaker 3: ever heard of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never seen it. I'm only vaguely aware of it,
Speaker 1: and my initial reaction is much like when I hear
Speaker 1: about anybody playing Sherlock Holmes. I'm my personal response is
Speaker 1: you're not Sherlock Holmes. Jeremy Brett is Sherlock Holmes. But
Speaker 1: then I read this is crazy. Just learned this literally today.
Speaker 1: That ten years earlier before this TV adaptation of The
Speaker 1: Crucifer of Blood, Heston played the role in an LA
Speaker 1: stage adaptation of the play, and Jeremy Brett played Watson.
Speaker 4: What.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't seem right, It doesn't seem like it
Speaker 1: should be real. It seems like this is some sort
Speaker 1: of awful joke being played on me personally. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Jimmy Brett was a fine Watson.
Speaker 4: I gotta look this up.
Speaker 3: I just I am not even finding myself able to
Speaker 3: imagine Charlton Eston as Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 4: That is weird. That is deep weird.
Speaker 1: I don't have any other information on it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he attempts a British accent or not, but
Speaker 1: it definitely happened. It happened more than once. Now it's
Speaker 1: not just Paul Giovanni on the music here. The collaborating
Speaker 1: musicians responsible are credited as Magnet, headed up by composer
Speaker 1: Gary Carpenter born nineteen fifty one, who is also associate
Speaker 1: music director on the film. I watched a great interview
Speaker 1: with Carpenter about the film's music and the winding path
Speaker 1: the soundtrack took to actual physical release. All very insightful
Speaker 1: and full of lots of technical details if you're interested
Speaker 1: in the recording details in all but one observation he
Speaker 1: made that I thought was interesting is he compares the
Speaker 1: raw recording style of the film's music is being very
Speaker 1: similar to later trends and just music recording in general.
Speaker 1: So we have all these scenes where in the picture
Speaker 1: musicians characters that our musicians are creating the music within
Speaker 1: the scene. But of course all of that is also
Speaker 1: recorded separately in a sound studio to be used as
Speaker 1: part of, you know, to create the film score and soundtrack.
Speaker 1: But it's the same people. So you have this interesting
Speaker 1: connection there, and that's I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that they said, well, we're going to record this in
Speaker 1: such a way that there is a rawness to it
Speaker 1: that he kept talking about, how you can hear like
Speaker 1: like some of the physical details of the instrumentation. You know,
Speaker 1: I guess to sort of place you in the scene
Speaker 1: with the music creation and not just experiencing the results
Speaker 1: of the musical act.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so once again, Yeah, the music is a very
Speaker 1: important part of The wicker Man and is on the
Speaker 1: whole terrific. I should also add that the score is
Speaker 1: widely available. You can buy it, you can stream it,
Speaker 1: so after you've watched The wicker Man, you can do
Speaker 1: what I've been doing and just run the score and
Speaker 1: the soundtrack over and over again in your headphones.
Speaker 3: And you can wander around your house singing corn rigs
Speaker 3: and bars.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh, we do that so much. All right, now,
Speaker 1: this is the point at which we would normally transition
Speaker 1: into discussing the plot. But I believe, given that we
Speaker 1: have so much more to talk about, and we're going
Speaker 1: to go ahead and cut this episode and we will
Speaker 1: continue this in a part two in the next installment
Speaker 1: of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: That's right, gives you plenty of time to watch the
Speaker 3: movie if you did not heed our warning at the
Speaker 3: very beginning and go watch it.
Speaker 1: Then that's right. We haven't done this with many films.
Speaker 1: We were talking about this before we rolled here. We
Speaker 1: did it with Highlander two, and we did it with
Speaker 1: inch Is Doune. So uh uh yeah, you know that's
Speaker 1: this is a film that I think checks off all
Speaker 1: the boxes. It's a big film. There's a lot that's
Speaker 1: been said about it. There's a lot that we have
Speaker 1: to say about it. I mean, I feel like I
Speaker 1: could spend a good half hour just talking about key
Speaker 1: scenes such as the scene all the scenes that take
Speaker 1: place in the candy store slash post office.
Speaker 3: Oh well, okay, then this is something we should do
Speaker 3: before we wrap up today's episode. What is your top
Speaker 3: confection from the post office slash slash candy store in
Speaker 3: summer Isle Town.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean there's so much. I mean, I love
Speaker 1: this shop. This is one of those shops that feels
Speaker 1: absolutely real. You know, I imagine they've taken any they took.
Speaker 1: They took an existing shop and in Scotland and uh
Speaker 1: on one on the Loton location and dressed it up
Speaker 1: and it's just filled with all of these uh you know,
Speaker 1: strange pagan treats. Uh and you're.
Speaker 3: Saying they would really feed these nightmare images to children.
Speaker 1: I guess. So you know within you know, in the
Speaker 1: fictional world of the film, Yes, I mean there are
Speaker 1: several key standouts that there is. Of course, the baby cake,
Speaker 1: the kid cake. That's that's an easy favorite, I think
Speaker 1: for anybody. But the closer you look, there are all
Speaker 1: these other little details. There are little pink elephants. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the pink elephants represent within their their
Speaker 1: their rights and observations, but they are there in their
Speaker 1: numerous ones. There are some wonderful frogs or toads. Those
Speaker 1: were my wife's favorites.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the chocolate rams heads with littless yellow eyes.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, there are a number of hairs as well,
Speaker 1: and some other strange babies that are are in the
Speaker 1: shop in addition to this. So I don't know, I've
Speaker 1: got to go with the kid cake or the elephants.
Speaker 1: Probably the kid cake. It's the kid cake.
Speaker 3: How about the bride with the wreath of pink flowers
Speaker 3: around her head with the eyes pinned open like Alex
Speaker 3: and clockwork orange.
Speaker 1: That's good too.
Speaker 4: What are they showing that cake? What does she have
Speaker 4: to watch? Are they playing the lud Big band.
Speaker 1: I think the kid cake has maybe some I'd have
Speaker 1: to watch the scene again, but based on a still
Speaker 1: that I pulled up, I think there's like maybe a
Speaker 1: jelly filling to it, which you know is fitting.
Speaker 3: Oh I see that. Yeah, you see them cut it
Speaker 3: open and it's kind of spilling out.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like a jam roll jamcake sort of a situation.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Something that's really confusing is that in may Morrison's post
Speaker 3: office slash sweet shop, they serve green frog cakes that
Speaker 3: you eat. But we also see in the same shop
Speaker 3: later she's putting a live green frog in a kid's
Speaker 3: mouth to cure her of a sore throat.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, but then that's not candy, that's medicinal. But
Speaker 1: then she gets a hard candy afterwards as a treat
Speaker 1: to sort of like, you know, that's right, to get
Speaker 1: rid of the taste of the frog.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: Well, to learn more about the sweet Shop and the
Speaker 3: rest of what Samuraile has to offer to the adventurous tourists,
Speaker 3: you'll have to come back next week for part two
Speaker 3: two of our series on the Wickerman.
Speaker 1: That's right, Keep your appointment with the Wickerman next week
Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema, but in the meantime, we would
Speaker 1: love to hear from you if you already have thoughts
Speaker 1: to share about the Wickerman wright in we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. Let's see, we should remind you that
Speaker 1: if you want to follow Weird House Cinema online, we
Speaker 1: have a letterboxed account. You can find us there. Our
Speaker 1: username is Weirdhouse. We have a nice list of all
Speaker 1: the movies we've covered over the years, sometimes a peek
Speaker 1: ahead at what's coming up next, and you can also
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at stbym podcast. We're on some
Speaker 1: other social networks as well, but those are the main
Speaker 1: places to follow us.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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