May 2, 2025 • 58 mins
In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the monumental 1973 British folk horror film “The Wicker Man,” directed by Robin Hardy, written by Anthony Shaffer and starring Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee. (Part 1 of 2)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
This is Joe McCormick. And today, as we are recording this,
it is May first, the sacred festival of May Day,
and so we are going to be talking, in accordance
with the season, about the classic nineteen seventy three British
film The wicker Man, which is usually usually grouped under
a genre people call full corror. Maybe we can quibble
(00:37):
in this episode about whether that title should or should
not be applied. And also note though we rarely do
this on Weird House Cinema, usually we keep it one
movie per episode. This is one we think we're going
to have to split into two parts because we love
the Wickerman and we're going to have a lot to
say about it. The only two other movies we've ever
(00:57):
done this with before were David Lynch's Doom and Highlander
to the Quickening, So putting the Wickerman in there, there
is cohesion to this trinity.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yes, these are three films that are often associated with
each other, but I do agree like there's a lot
to say about the Wickerman. We're probably going to go
on and on a bit in a good way, so
it's very possible we'll split here.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
So I'm very excited because The Wickerman is one of
my personal favorite movies. In fact, it's a mutual favorite
in our house. It's also one of my wife Rachel's
all time favorite movies. So we've got a lot of
like Wickerman merch in our house. I don't know if
you've seen any of that stuff, Rob, but we've got
like a Wickerman night light, and.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh man, I don't think I remember seeing any of this,
all right.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's great. Well, it lights up behind the wicker glows.
You know, there's kind of an orange glow behind a
Wickerman silhouette.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Actually, before we go on to any further detail, there
is something I definitely want to say. So in every
Weird House Cinema episode we end up discussing the plot
of the movie that recovering in some detail. So it's
always the case that you should watch the movie first
if you don't want to have anything spoiled. But if
you've never seen The Wickerman from nineteen seventy three, this
(02:13):
in particular is really a film I would recommend going
into knowing as little as possible. Obviously, it gets into
some horror territory, so if you're sensitive to horror themes,
you can look things up ahead of time. But otherwise,
if you have a general appetite for horror, I would strongly,
strongly encourage you to not even glance at a plot summary,
(02:34):
not listen to any more of this episode. Just go
ahead and watch it.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
But then come back and listen to this. Yes.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yes, So the first time I saw it, a friend
of mine when I was in college showed it to
me without telling telling me anything ahead of time. I'm
just really grateful I got to experience it that way.
The Wickerman is such an unusual and surprising film. It
is full of unexpected humor and horror and delight and despair,
(03:02):
and even now, like fifty years later, in a world
where a lot of movies you may have already seen
have been influenced by The Wickerman. If you haven't seen
it before and you don't know everything ahead of time,
I think it will keep you very intrigued and puzzled
in the best possible way.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah. Absolutely, It's a film that really stands on its own,
even though it is part of the folk car subgenre
and is very influential over the full car subgenre. I
think that the big three that are often referred to
or sixty eights, whitch Finder General, seventy one's Blood on
Satan's Claw, and then of course seventy three is The
wicker Man. But at the same time, nothing else is
(03:42):
really like The wicker Man, even other movies that have
the name the wicker Man. There are remakes of the
movie we're talking about here today are nothing like it.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We might have to get into the remake in part
two here. I think there really just is no other
movie like it is its own genre and perhaps still
the only movie in that genre. But anyway, if you
haven't seen The Wickerman yet and you want to pause
here and go watch it so you can, you can
see it unspoiled, and then come back, we will give
(04:13):
you a little music break, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Looking back, I think I saw The wicker Man for
the first time, probably like on I think it was
A and E. So I saw it on cable. Didn't
know what I was getting into, but it instantly loved
it and at some point decided, well I need to
own this forever. I'm going to buy a special edition
VHS of The wicker Man in a big clamshell case. Yes,
and I did, and of course it was replaced by
(04:55):
DVDs just you know a.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Few years later. Did you have the version with the
Wooden Box?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I did not, but I do remember seeing that at
the movie store at the mall. They had all these
special editions that one. I'm not sure if that was
an Anchor Bay release, but this was a time period
during which Anchor Bay was like the source for cool,
you know, DVDVHS editions of whatever your favorite genre films
(05:20):
happened to be.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I have to mention again I've said this on the
show before that someday we should come back and do
a series on weird House Cinema that's just movies that
had gimmick packaging, so like the release of the Wickerman
and the Wooden Box that I'm sure a lot of
people now just used to store whatever and who knows
what they put in there. Yeah, but also like the
(05:42):
Dead Pit with the light up eyes, and I'm sure
we could get a whole list of them. Gimmick packaging
on VHS tapes is just such a beautiful, beautiful thing,
like almost nothing gives me more weird, gleeful nostalgia.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I know a collector or two we could reach out
to for that. But yeah, The Wickerman just such a
great weird film, one that succeeds in creating not merely
an uncanny horror movie, but a thought provoking cinematic enigma.
So not to say you can't appreciate it purely as
a horror film, purely as this you know, roller coaster
ride and experience, but there's just a lot of rich
(06:17):
texture to the film that leaves you to make your
own interpretations. Like some of the big ones are of
course regard like what is the film saying or not
saying about pagan religious beliefs, about modern Christian faith, about
human religion in general.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah, one of my favorite things about it is that
the movie is saying a lot in a way, but
it's not really reducible to a message. Maybe I would
say it's not actually saying, it is singing, Like the
story is just overflowing with meaning and has the kind
of feeling of a commentary, but it is not really
(06:54):
reducible to a message or a thesis. There's no point
the movie really makes without out also sort of making
the opposite point. Also, obviously, the subject matter means that
the story is entangled with themes of religion, with religion, ritual,
and faith, which are three different things, but also power
(07:16):
and violence and the law. Some people talk about this
movie like they think the point of it is Christianity
is bad and Paganism was better. I've seen people talk
about it like they think. It kind of means that.
I feel like it would be hard to really say
that's the point of the movie, if you think about it.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
At the same time, it is certainly not saying the
opposite either. This movie is not Christian apologetics, and it
was considered extremely offensive by many Christians when it came out,
And so instead the religious themes are more it's just
sort of a gardening project of religious themes. Just themes
are sort of growing, and we're seeing how they grow
and interact. It's like throwing Christianity and Celtic Paganism into
(07:59):
a weird life flower bed together and seeing what pops
up and how they twist around each other.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, because I think it's
it's easy to reduce the film, you know, sort of
boil it down to Okay, here we have just a
it's a folk car tale. It's a you know, exploitation
your standard story about someone from the city or from civilization,
like going into a rural or more rural part of
their own country and invoke it and and encountering like,
(08:27):
you know, scary locals there. You know, you see this
a lot in fiction in general, but also in speculative
fiction and weird fiction and horror. There's certainly an element
of that here, not to say that it doesn't you know,
dip its toes and wade into those waters. But like
you said, it presents ideas on both sides. Like there's
(08:48):
there's certainly plenty to admire in the idealistic, close to nature,
sex positive society of Summer Isle, but we also come
to see the dangers of their ideology. Likewise, our protagonist
comes from a world of science and reason, and we
like science and reason, and then obviously that seems to
be a value that is celebrated within the context of
(09:11):
the film as well. But we also see that his
world as one of, at least in his own experience,
one of sexual repression and deep seated unhappiness. And at
the same time, these two worlds are linked in very
fundamental ways, and the film does a great job of,
sometimes very subtly, sometimes more overtly stitching those connections out.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Which we pause really quickly and just say, like, what
a one sentence plot summary is. Yeah, It's like. There
is a remote Scottish island called Summer Isle, and a
West Highland Police officer, a police detective named Sergeant Howie,
has been summoned to the island via an anonymous letter
saying that a girl on the island named Rowan Morrison
(09:54):
has gone missing. So Sergeant Howie, he is, by the way,
a devoutly religious Christian police inspector. He goes to the
island by seaplane to look for the missing girl and
to find out more about the note he received. So
that's the setup. And then one of the main things
we can say about the plot branching out from there
(10:14):
is that Sergeant how he discovers the inhabitants of this
remote Scottish island are not Christians, there in fact practicing
what seems to be a variant of Celtic paganism, celebrating
the old gods, the joyous old gods, and some of
the modes of their celebration are quite distressing to him
get the basics at least.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good setup here.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Another thing I want to mention about The Wickerman that
I'd love and find really unique about the movie is
the ambiguity of the main characters. So the protagonist of
the film, the detective protagonist, Sergeant Howie, is simultaneously so
sympathetic and so hateable. His mission is a good one.
(10:58):
He is trying to invent instigate the case of a
missing girl, and we see his dedication to his mission
in a way that, like, you know, obviously, if a
child goes missing, it is very good to want to
solve that problem and look out for the welfare of
the child, which we see he is genuinely invested in.
We also see the setting of summerle from his perspective
(11:20):
and are thus frustrated with the kind of squirreliness and
untrustworthiness of the people he encounters while he's trying to
solve this mystery. But also Sergeant Howie's personality and worldview
are so off putting. He is arrogant, self righteous, puritanical, rude,
(11:42):
and over and over again his behavior is just so
misaligned with how it seems he should be conducting the investigation.
He gets sidetracked from this genuinely noble quest in order
to screech at people about saying the word penis and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, like the scene where he disrupts the classroom.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah. Yeah, So this is not a type of protagonist
I can think of many other examples of, and I
find it such an interesting choice. He's kind of like
a combination of like Hercule Poirot, but not as but
without the virtuosity and detective work. I'll come back to
that in a minute. But then also, I don't know,
(12:23):
like one of the one of the judges in The
Crucible or like the Witchfinder General. He's like a totally
unsympathetically puritanical prude.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, so do we like him, like.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Not really sometimes not at all, But also we we
sympathize with what he's doing, and we want him to
find out what happened to the girl and solve the mystery,
because we do repeatedly since that something treacherous is afoot
and that Sergeant Howie might be the only person on
this island who is actually trying to do what's right.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, yeah, and that's that's important to realize and something
that I think you can sometimes lose track of if
you haven't seen the film in a long time, or rather,
if you've seen the film and you know the general plot,
you know what's gonna happen, and you're rewatching it. But yeah,
it's important to note like what he's not. Like, he's
not a pure punchline, like he's not he's not a
(13:16):
straight man to set up a joke. Yeah, and we'll
talk more about the tone here in a second. He's
also not a character that deserves punishment like it's. It's
you can easily imagine a cheap kind of like easy
comics Tales from the Crypt version of this exact story,
where his downfall is directly connected to a specific action
or choice on his part, or a deep seated character
(13:38):
flaw or something. And that's not really the case either,
or at least it's not that one thing that fits
into the the you know, the little box in the
in the Tales in the Crypt comic book. You know,
it's it's broader than that.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It's more complicated, right, I know exactly what you're saying. So, yeah,
he's not like a Tails from the Crypt protagonist to
his the classic format of that character is it is
someone who has done something quite evil, is like flawed
in a way that spells their own doom. They're going
to get a kind of karmic punishment, and we are
satisfied to see them get it. Howie is not like that.
(14:13):
His unlikeability is shallower and more esthetic. Again, it's just
that he is like a rude, arrogant, aggressive, prudish, self
righteous jerk. But again I come back to he is
a character like that, But we're with him because we
sense something is very wrong on this island and he
(14:35):
might be the only person who's able to do something
about it. But then again, is there something wrong on
this island? Another way the movie really keeps you guessing
is the characterization of the people positioned as Sergeant Howie's antagonists,
like Lord Summerle played by Christopher Lee in a masterful
(14:55):
performance We'll talk about more as we go on, or
Miss Rose by Diane Cilento, by sort of the default
structure of the mystery narrative. These are the suspects in
the mystery disappearance of Rowan Morrison, and they're so interesting
and likable and polite and have thoughtful perspectives, and they're
(15:17):
sometimes just positively jolly in the face of Howie being
like rude and aggressive to them. And I don't know,
like all the antagonists are so lovable, even when it
feels like they're covering something up or not being forthright
about what they know.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, yeah, another weird thing about the characters. This is
one of the only detective stories I can think of.
In fact, maybe it's the only one. Could you even
think of a possible counterexample, I don't know. One of
(15:54):
the only detective stories I know of where the protagonist
is not only unlikable but not particularly competent. Right, this
is what you always have a detective story about somebody
who has powers of reasoning and insights, Sherlock Holmes or Poirot,
you know, detectives who are skilled at solving a complicated puzzle.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Sergeant Howie is clearly shown in the movie to be
not a very good detective at all, and I think
this is an essential part of his characterization. He is
constantly missing important clues and constantly making bad choices that
lead to dead ends in his pursuit of information. I
(16:39):
think one of the main feelings that the audience will
generally have about Sergeant Howie is the feeling of pity.
It's like, oh boy, this poor guy, he is out
of his depth. Isn't that so strange to have a
what is essentially a detective story and that's a key
feature of your protagonist. Can you think of another story
(17:00):
like that?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
The only examples I can think of are examples where
the character is played for humor. Yeah, and this is
where we should probably talk about the tone of the film,
and I'll just goe and mentioned like humor wise, there
are lots of things I think you can you can
you will find humorous in The wicker Man, and I
think those things are intended. And yet at the same time,
(17:23):
it's not a comedy. It is played straight, and certainly
Sergeant Howie's character is played straight like it's you could
you could easily imagine a character like this tweaked into
more of like a Michael Scott from the office to area,
you know, or various like bumbling detective comedies we've seen
over the years, and that's not what this film is.
(17:43):
And of course, as well as we will continue to
discuss like it does defy easy categorization in a number
of ways.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah, I like the way you put it about the humor.
I think that's right. It's like, there is a lot
of intended humor in the movie, and it's iron in nature.
It's not in the form of overt jokes and gags.
But anyway, I just all these character dynamics, like the
unlikeability of the protagonist, the incompetence of the protagonist, and
(18:13):
the the likability and thoughtfulness of his antagonists. All these
things really keep you guessing, or they certainly did keep
me guessing when I first watched Again I when I
first saw this, I really had no idea where the
movie was going and was floored by the ending, the
famous surprise ending.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah. Yeah, And then that's the testament to a film
like this, if you're along for the ride, even if
you are beginning to wonder, like where could this ride
possibly be going.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Now, we've said several times we want to come back
to the tone of the movie. I think I said
at the beginning that it's questionable whether you should really
call this movie a horror movie. When people call it horror,
I think they're thinking mainly about the ending, which is
absolutely horrifying. But for like ninety ninety five percent of
(19:05):
the movie does it really feel like a horror film?
I don't think so. I think most of the runtime
it feels more like a bizarre, whimsical, religiously themed mystery.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah yeah, and even just feels at times feels like
a goofy musical, but not at like a laugh like
a horror horror horror goofy musical, but just like you
might ask yourself, what am I watching. My wife had
never seen it before, and she watched Party with me
last night, and I think that was kind of her reaction,
Like I was like, do you want to watch part
(19:37):
of this full car movie from the early nineteen seventies,
And She's like sure, and then she's like, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
This is funny. Last night, Rachel and I also showed
this movie to somebody for the first time and they
had a similar reaction, though, like what is going on
for much of the time, but I can report there
was a big thumbs up in the end awesome, but yeah, yeah,
it's so so. It's got that weird, not horror at
all tone for most of the runtime and then suddenly
(20:07):
bam the ending, which is I think one of the bleakest,
most terrifying scenes I can think of in all of
movie history. It is at once beautiful and terrible. It
makes your blood run cold and then warm and then
cold again.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty powerful and I in terms of
films we've watched on Weird House, I put it up
there with Seconds. Yeah, in terms of its impact, I
also want to add that even in the film's restored state,
which is generally how you'll find it I assume streaming
and certainly on home media, there's a raw as to
the footage that at times contributes to this feeling that
(20:44):
we're watching documentary footage of some sort, like it's a
documentary about the way people actually live on this island. Also,
you have a lot of non actors in there and musicians,
as we'll note, which adds to that feel like I'm
not watching actors, I'm watching real people and this must
be how they live. The production design, the locations are
all a part of this. And you could also probably
(21:06):
compare this to some rather different films from the nineteen
seventies that also have a similar feel, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
though again very different sort of horror film.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah, though this movie has a lot more of a
community feel than Texas Chainsaw Mascar does, which is very
isolated and you're only going to meet a few weird characters,
but it has that documentary visual style. What you mentioned
about the presence of non actors is I feel like
a big has a big impact on the ambience of
this film. Their scenes in a pub or out in
(21:37):
a you know, on a street beside a harbor, where
lots of people are milling around on screen and most
of them are clearly not actors, people kind of looking
weird and confused and mumbling, and it contributes greatly to
a sense of reality. Actually, yeah. And it also it
makes the important characters pop more, like when you know
(22:00):
all these kind of like old men who are just
kind of mumbling their lines a little bit as they're
standing around outside the end, and then we meet Lord
Somerle and suddenly it's Christopher Lee and you're like awed
by his presence.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Now.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Another thing that is kind you could think of as
just an extension of the very unusual tone of the
movie is the fact that it's also sort of a musical.
Like it not only prominently features music with lyrics on
the soundtrack, it has several diegetic musical numbers where the
characters sing and even sing into the camera. Is there
(22:36):
another horror movie like that. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, I can't think of another film, certainly a horror
film that uses music quite the same way.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
One thing that I think is interesting about the use
of music is that only the characters who live on
summerle seem to know that they're in a musical. So like, normally,
if you're in a musical, all the characters saying, or
all of the major characters sing. The protagonist certainly sings,
But Sergeant Howie does not sing except we see him
(23:05):
again it's diegetic music. We see him singing him at
church at the beginning of the movie. That's just a
scene where he's in church. He never like looks into
the camera and sings the way say Britt Eklund does
or the way Christopher Lee does. So it's only the
Pagans that are allowed to actually be in a musical
as musical players. Sergeant Howie is just sort of living
(23:29):
in their musical world without getting to be an agent
of music himself.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah, yeah, what if he had sung though, that would
have been interesting taken in taken more of it like
a Schmigadoon direction where he realizes that he has to
sing in order to in order to connect with these characters.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
M yeah, maybe things would have turned out differently for him.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
He does sing a little the end. He does sing
a little the end. I think, well, we'll get back
to that. And while he may sing just a little bit,
he never dances. And dances is also a big part
of a number of these musical numbers where we see
some sort of ritual dance taking place.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
In fact, at one point when he's in disguise, he
gets yelled at for not dancing because he's in disguise
going down the May Day parade and uh at one
and Christopher Lee turns and sees him just kind of
wandering down the road instead of, I don't know, doing
whatever he's supposed to be doing, and he yells at him.
Cut some capers, mad, you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Got time to glance, You got time to dance?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, okay, I don't think we can possibly do an
elevator pitch for Wickerman.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
No, it pretty much stands on its own. So let's
let's go ahead in here just a little bit from
the what I believe is the original trailer.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
I got a tail on flo whose lightest work would head?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
O up my soul, prett, young blood.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
I am here to investigate the disappearance. I'm a young girl.
Where is Rowan Morrison? If Ruin Morrison existed, we would
not I should spect Manda the name of.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
God, woman, What kind of mother are you that can
stand by and see your own child slaughtered?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
You are the fool of them.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
Liars. You are despicable little liars. Where if Roan Morrison,
if Morrison existed, we would not. I suspect Manda she was,
but you are the fool. Where is Rowan Morrison? Oh?
(25:55):
My god?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
All right? If you would like to see The wicker
Man again? Widely available in all formats, and it's cult
following has seen multiple special editions released over the years.
There have been a few different cuts. I'm not sure
to what degree we're going to get into talking about
different cuts of the film. I think there are like
three major versions, like a theatrical version, and then they
added some minutes to it, and then they took away
(26:28):
a few minutes. But definitely watch it in you know,
the best format you can get. Maybe shopple around a
little bit on those different forms. I watched it in
a restored form on Blu Ray one that I rented
from Atlanta's own Videodrome from their full car subsection. Nice.
But I don't know which edition it was. I know
(26:49):
it had like baked in trailers at the beginning, which
I did not like. I feel like, especially now, it
makes me think it was maybe a slightly older Blu
Ray because it's more and more Blu rays these days,
I feel like are treated like the premium item they are,
and they're like less tied to timely trailers for motion pictures.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Wait, what was what were your bakedin trailers for? Mine
was for a re release of American Psycho. Yes, yes, okay,
so we've got the same disc, do we?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Okay, So then you probably watched what's called the final cut,
I think so, And the final cut is I think
the latest of the major cuts of the film. Did
your version also have some scenes that were in much
lower film quality than most of the movie?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I believe? So? Yeah, restored sequences, yes.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So, like the scene where Christopher Lee is outside the
inn at night talking to a slug about how he
wants to be like him.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Oh so good.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yeah, that's good. That was not in the original version
of the movie that I saw. I think the first
one I saw was the theatrical cut. But so that's
a restored scene that the film does not look great,
but I'm glad it's there, and it's worth it to have,
even though it's cutting back and forth between extremely different
levels of fidelity. It's worth it to have that.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, And it helps too that the best fidelity in
the film is not like so great that it feels
as jarring or at least the Yeah, that's the impression
I have. Alright, Let's get into the people behind this
(28:30):
film a bit, starting with the director, of course. The
director was Robin Hardy, who lived nineteen twenty nine through
twenty sixteen. English director who started out directing for the
National Film Board of Canada, then Yeah Yeah, then PBS
aligned Soo World Theater, before moving to London to partner
with screenwriter Anthony Schaeffer to co found an advertising agency.
(28:52):
The wicker Man Again, released in seventy three, filmed in
seventy two, I believe, was his first feature directorial project
and by far his most impactful. He only followed it
up with two other films nineteen eighty six is The Fantasist,
and twenty eleven's The Wicker Tree, based on his own novel,
Cowboys for a Christ. He also has a story credit
(29:13):
on nineteen eighty eights Forbidden's Son. After The Wickerman, he
returned to the US and mostly wrote historical novels and worked,
according to his obituary in The Guardian, as a consultant
in the historical theme park business. David Piner is the
novelist the novel ritual from nineteen sixty seven. This apparently
is what they paid to adapt it. It's not one
(29:35):
of these cases where they just kind of ripped it off,
like they paid to do the adaptation but then ultimately
deviated from a lot of it. I haven't read it,
but I'm to understand it.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
It concerns, maybe on some level, the same skeleton of
a plot line where a police investigator is checking out
some rural community that ends up having some some you know,
pagan elements to their religious rights.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
No way to confirm this, just to guess, but I
like to imagine that this movie was at least in
part based on something from Christopher Lee's apocryphal collection of
Occult Tomes.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. Now, Anthony Shaffer that we mentioned,
who wrote the screenplay. He lived nineteen twenty six through
two thousand and one British writer whose previous credits included
Alfred Hitchcock's nineteen seventy two film Frenzy, which, if you
haven't seen it, seen it as quite a solid psycho
killer film, starring John Finch and Barry Foster.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
I've actually never seen that one. I love Hitchcock, but.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Oh it's good. It hasn't as I recall it as
a really nice long shot.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
At one point we had some movies with those yet
was this his second to last movie?
Speaker 2 (30:43):
It was pretty late.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
And also Shaffer wrote the two man play turned film
Sleuth from the same year, starring Lawrence Olivier and Michael Kine,
and he'd later work on Let's See. There was a
whole series of seventies and eighties Agatha Christie film adaptations
in which Peter Eustonoff played Pierrot and his identical twin brother.
Peter Schaffer, who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty sixteen,
(31:07):
was also an acclaimed screenwriter whose stage in screen credits
include Equis and Amedeus Wow talented siblings.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Yes, there is a lot to love about The Wickerman,
but I think it has a particularly fantastic screenplay for
a horror film. Not to insult horror films generally, but
you know, I'm a lover of horror, but I'm aware
that a lot of horror writing does it is attracted
to cliches, like a magnet sort of, and this screenplay,
(31:38):
even though now we live in a world where a
lot of other stories I think have copied a lot
from The Wickerman, but at least for its own time,
incredibly unusual and unique and remarkably I think free of
cliche is just an original and authentic exploration.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Absolutely all right. Getting into the cast here, playing Sergeant Howie,
we have Edward Woodwarton, who lived nineteen thirty through two
thousand and nine, British actor of stage, screen and TV,
who at the time was best known in the UK
for his portrayal of Secret Service agent Callen on the
TV show of the same name. Now, when I first
watched The wicker Man, I knew him mostly from advertisements
(32:22):
for the TV show The Equalizer, which ran eighty five
through eighty nine.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
What does an equalizer do.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
I don't know. It's not a show I ever actually watched,
but I know I just was like, well, that's the equalizer.
He equalizes.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
It sounds like a piece of audio equipment.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah. I don't know if the equalizer on the TV
show is a cop, if he's like a fixer, Like
which side of the law he's aligned with? Is he
a secret agent? I'm not sure, but he equalizes, so
there's some implied neutrality there.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
I guess I've got a seventy nine two equalizer man.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
He has a ton of credits, though, including nineteen sixty
four's Beckett, nineteen eighty's Breaker Morant. He had the title
role in that. He's in nineteen eighty four as a
Christmas carol. He plays the ghost of Christmas Present in
that one. This is one of the Christmas carols that
my family watched a lot when I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
That's so funny. The ghost of Christmas Present is supposed
to be jolly and full of good cheer, which is
not at all in the role I'm familiar with.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, yeah, it's very different role. He pops up in
two thousand and seven's Hot Fuzz. His only other horror
films is that I'm aware of are nineteen seventy one's
Bloodsuckers and nineteen eighty two's The Appointment. And I would
also be remiss if I didn't mention that he plays
Sol in the nineteen eighty five King David movie. That's
the one that has George Eastman in it.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
This is like the second reference to this in like
three weeks.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Everything comes back to George Eastman. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
I think Edward Woodward should get a lot of love
for this performance because it's kind of a thankless role.
Like it is so much easier to love the Pagans
in the movie, to love Christopher Lee, and to love
Diane Celento and Ingrid Pitt, you know, all the local
characters who are sort of the colorful, interesting wild ones.
(34:09):
As we've said many times, the protagonist of this movie
is not very likable. He's kind of a stick in
the mud. He's kind of a jerk, and so I
think it's very easy to miss how important the portrayal
of this character is to the effect of the story
in the end. And Edward Woodward is great in the role.
He he doesn't try to steal the show and make
(34:29):
his character more likable than he needs to be. Instead,
he's he's exactly what is called for by the script
and he's he's great. He's great.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, And it's a complex role. It's arguably far more
complex than any of the other characters that we encounter
in the picture. I was watching an interview with the
director and Hardy really gives a lot of credit to
Woodward for creating this character on the screen. Like he says,
you know, like with Christopher Lee's character, we had these
(34:58):
parameters set out and Christopher Lee delivered, you know, knocked
out of the park. But there was a lot to
Sergeant Howie that really had to be created in the performance.
And he gives Woodward all the credit in the world
for doing that.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
That's right. A lot of how we feel about how
he isn't even in his lines. It's in kind of
facial expressions and reactions. He brings such a sense of
visible frustration to the character in every scene almost you
can just see him just kind of like shaking with annoyance.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, and wrestling with what he's seeing. You know, there's
a lot of he's not telling you his internal monologue
about how conflicted he may feel about certain things or tempted.
He may feel about certain things. It's just in the performance, you.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Know, when he's trying to say hide to maybe a
prurient sexual interest that he knows he should not have,
but is part of his character as well. So yeah,
totally agree. Woodward is excellent.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
All right, Let's move on to Lord summer Isle, who,
as we've been mentioning, is played by the Great Christopher
Lee who lived nineteen twenty two through twenty fifteen. This
is our seventh Weird House Cinema selection featuring Sir Christopher Lee,
you know, as we as you know, best known for
such roles as Sarimon the White and Lord of the Rings,
Dracula in multiple Hammer horror films and some non Hammer
(36:20):
horror films, and Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels.
I just caught Revenge of the Sith on the big
screen in its re release, and his performance is brief
but very memorable, has a nice little arc to it,
probably I would say arguably stands out among his very
late career performances.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
I've said this before that I'm not as big a
fan of the Star Wars prequels, though not to poo
poo anybody who does love them, but for me at least,
even in my least favorite, which is Attack of the Clones,
when Christopher Lee shows up, it's just it's a whole
other movie now, Like I love him, and yeah, so
Christopher Lee is one of my favorites, but this is
(36:59):
it's got to be. This is my all time favorite
Christopher Lee role. The Wickerman is head and shoulders above
them all to me.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah, I mean, And this is an opinion that Christopher
Lee shared as well. By most accounts, the film was
reportedly a real passion project for him. We mentioned how
he was pretty much in the room, being one of
the people who brought it together to begin with, and
he claimed, and I have no reason to doubt him,
to have waived off any payment for the role that
(37:28):
basically like they couldn't afford him, they couldn't afford his rate.
And he's like, well, don't worry about it. I want
this film to be made. And then when the film
studio opted to release it in the UK without a
screening as part of a double feature, the second half
of the double feature with Don't Look Now.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Which is a great horror movie.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, yeah, it's a very, very well received picture. I
don't know if it's these are two strange kind of
an odd match to pair them together. Yes, but that
kind of also shows you that the studio seemingly didn't
really know what to do with the film, and we're
just kind of like, we'll just put it out there,
we're not going to screen it. But Lee then personally
calls all the film critics that he knew of to
(38:06):
encourage them to see the film and offering to buy
their ticket if they needed him to.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Wow, that's great. Uh and and I love that because
I'm pretty sure, actually I don't know what the original
critical reception was, but I know the studio that owned
that owned the Wickerman hated it when when it was
coming to I think it was emi like they famously
like were panicking because they thought the movie was so
(38:32):
bad and they were trying to find ways to avoid
releasing it or to to cut it down. I think
I think they just hated what they had on their
hands and they didn't realize that it was a masterpiece.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, yeah, there there. This seems to definitely be the
be true to some extent, but then there's also some
seems to be some myth making on top of that.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Okay, you know, like I said, this.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Is a film that's been very popular for a long time.
There's been a lot of interviews and a lot of comments,
Like I saw one story that I'm I'm casting some
doubt on that Rod Stewart tried to buy all the
copies of it at one point so he could destroy
his then girlfriend's nude scene. Things like that. I don't know,
I'm just going to pass that by.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Was he dating Britt Ecklund.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I believe so, yes, Okay. Also it said that later on,
when the film was released in the United States and
seventy four, Lee flew to the States on his own
dime to promote it as well, and would just appear
on basically any show to talk about the Wickerman.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
That just filled me with happiness.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
That's gorgeous, and as we've been saying, it is a
delightful performance from Lee, which I think is saying something
because while Lee is always a fine screen presence, he
almost always plays a rather grim and serious character, often
with a malicious glint in his eyes, and for much
of the film, the Lord Summerle that we experience is
a joyous, carefree figure. I swear Lee, who is I
(39:53):
think around fifty at the time, really feels younger and
certainly more energetic in this role than any anything else
I've seen him in from before or after this picture.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
He has the energy of a twenty two year old
hippie who does clowning school. Yes, yeah, he's just he's
just magical. In the movie, he's bursting with positive intensity,
occasionally turning threatening and then just turning very friendly and charming.
Speaker 5 (40:21):
Again.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
He has, in fact, he has kind of the quality
of a pagan god. You can feel him almost becoming
superhumanly enlarged and striding over the fields, beaming down sunshine
at everyone around him.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
That's good, that's good. Yeah. So these are our two
main characters, I guess in the film, but we have
a number of very interesting supporting roles, starting with I
believe we mentioned her already, but Diane Cialino plays Miss Rose,
who I believe is the town teacher. She's teaching to
I don't know what other like a lot of it's
a small town, so a lot of people have multiple
(40:58):
roles here.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah, double book on a lot of occupations in the town.
Miss Rose is a great character in dian Cia Lento
is excellent in this role. I mean, I'm gonna sound
repetitive with the cast because everybody's so good, but she
is great. She has such a gracious, almost flowing water
(41:18):
kind of way of reacting to Sergeant Howie's aggressive inquiry.
You know, she's at many points she is resisting his investigation.
But it's just hard to feel like she could possibly
be a bad guy, you know.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah, Yeah, she Like a number of the other townsfolk
that we meet, they're very likable and they seem very
sensible in the face of his investigation.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Yes, they're always making good points against Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
So. Cialento lived nineteen thirty two through twenty eleven Australian
born actress of stage and screen who is nominated for
an Oscar in nineteen sixty four for her supporting performance
in the movie Tom Jones. Her other credits include sixty
five's The Agony and the Ecstasy, nineteen sixty seven Zombre,
and nineteen seventy two ZPG. She married Anthony Schaeffer in
(42:13):
nineteen eighty five, and from her previous marriage, she was
the mother of Jason Connery. I've read that she was
a self professed white witch at the time of the
Wickerman's filming and was personally involved in various details, including
the fire dance. And at one point there's a tarot
card on the ceiling and I believe I've read that
she drew that or painted it.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Oh cool.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Oh. And then of course there's the innkeeper's daughter, Willow,
played by britt Eklund.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Also great. Britt Ekland gets a full on musical number
where she turns and looks into the camera while she's
singing yes.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah. Born nineteen forty two, Swiss actress, model and singer
who certainly delivers charisma and sex appeal for several key
scenes in the film, a character who, in Lord Somerle's words,
is the embodiment of the Goddess of Love. Ecklunn was
a rather major celebrity of the day and appeared in
some notable early nineteen seventies films, including seventy one's Get Carter,
(43:21):
nineteen seventy two's Asylum, and nineteen seventy four Is the
Man with the Golden Gun, which of course also featured
Christopher Lee.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Sometimes I watch that movie as a kind of it's
a James Bond movie. Yes, probably one of the worst
James Bond movies. It's not very good, but as I
say about some movies on here, it's not very good,
but it's a good time. It's just a nice little
(43:48):
wicker Man reunion to watch every now and then. I
seem to recall the character she plays in The Man
with the Golden Gun is supposed to be kind of
not very smart, like she's kind of always like clumsily.
I don't she's like a spy, but she's constantly like, whoops,
getting bumped into the trunk of a car. And yeah,
I don't know. It doesn't make a lot of sense,
(44:09):
but it's not a great movie. But in The Wickerman
she is not dumb. She's rather crafty.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Actually yeah she uh you know, she behaves almost like
a like a siren character. Yeah, and she has at
least one key uh scene that features nudity, and I
want to want to highlight that. A lot of times,
you know, the nudity and films of this era and
certainly of the genre or are more about pure titillation.
(44:35):
And you know, not to say that these scenes are
removed of titillation, but but there's a there's a lot
more going on here, and I feel like they're they're
overall very well crafted. In the extra that I featured,
Hardy talks a little bit about the Key Brett Acklin
nude scene and how they shot it and all, and
there's some there are actually some fun stories about that
(44:55):
where they actually had to send off for someone to
come in to be the butt double for that scene.
They had to get somebody from like a nightclub in Scotland.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Oh, that's funny, But we should say we've been speaking
about them like they might be two different scenes. The
nude scene is also the musical number Yes, yes, yeah,
and it is the scene where britt Eklund is really
dedicated to making Sergeant Howie starts sinning.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah. Yeah, he's in another room. But this the end
has very thin walls and you can hear everything, like
the people downstairs can hear everything. Howd he can hear everything? Yeah,
we'll get into that when we talk about the specific scene,
all right. And then rounding out the our trio of
blonde seventy starlets in this picture, we have Ingrid Pitt
(45:44):
playing the librarian. She lived nineteen thirty seven through twenty ten.
Something of a Hammer Horror regular, the Polish born actress
who started out on the East Berlin Stage. Is best
known for roles in such films as nineteen sixty eights
Where Eagles Dare, nineteen seventies The Vampire Lovers, and nineteen
seventy one's Countess Eddracula. Her other credits include episodes of
(46:05):
Doctor Who, nineteen seventy one is The House that Dripped
Blood and nineteen eighty five's Transmutations. We'll have more to
say about her when we talk about the specific one
of the main scenes that features the librarian.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Yes, now, you mentioned the character of Willow McGregor. That's
britt Eklund. But we also meet her father, the Innkeeper
aka the Landlord, who is an extremely odd critter.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yes Yes. Played by Lindsey Kemp, who lived nineteen thirty
eight through twenty eighteen. He was a British dancer, actor, teacher,
mime artist and choreographer. His other acting credits include seventy
two Savage Messiah, a nineteen eighty four TV adaptation of
A Midsummer Night's Dream in which he plays Puck, and
nineteen ninety eight's Velvet gold Mine. Very interesting character in
(46:54):
his own right. He was a mentor to both David
Bowie and Kate bush.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Hats off to him. I love every he's on screen.
He's got this wild kind of raised eyebrow that's just
always like, oh, you know you're a policeman, are you.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, he's great. There is always that kind of like
a sly judgment taking place with him. Yeah, wonderful little role.
I mean all the so, all the towns folk are great,
the non actors, the musicians, and then the various character
actors here and there. One that really stands out though,
is Aubrey Morris playing the old gardener Slash the grave Digger. Yes,
(47:33):
a great British character actor whose supporting roles include films
like seventy one a Clockwork, Orange Blood from the Mummy's
Tomb and Lyssomania, also nineteen eighty five's Life Force and
the She Creature from two thousand and one. I would
say one of the most memorable locals we meet in
the film.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
He has a fantastic moment where Sergeant Howie asks him
where their minister is and he just says and starts
laughing and walks away.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah, he's really he We meet him in the graveyard,
a great scene in the graveyard. Well we'll probably get
to but yeah, He lived nineteen twenty six through twenty fifteen.
All right, now, one more local man that I want
to mention here. There's a fishmonger character, and I'm not
sure I one hundred percent remember the fishmonger. Do you
remember the fishmonger?
Speaker 3 (48:23):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
It's possible his scene was even cut. I'm not certain.
If nothing else, we may see him in the background.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
There are a lot of rosy cheeked, gray haired, partly
balding old men who stand around in the background of
many scenes at the pub, at the harbor, and so forth,
at the May Day celebration and don't really get in
many individual moments of their own. But it's a it's
a but overall, it's a big community ensemble, and so
there are a lot of characters you're not going to
(48:49):
remember very specifically.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah. Well, the fishmonger is played by John Young, who
lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen ninety six. And this is
the guy who played the modern day historian that A
Knight murders in nineteen seventy five's Monty Python and the
Holy Grail.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Oh I remember him, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, he shows up like it's, you know, a television
show about medieval history. And then at one point a
night rides past him and slays him with a sword. Yeah,
it's a good gag. Yeah, as John Young. He was
also in Life of Brian in seventy nine and eighty
one's Chariots of Fire. Oh, and he's also in Time
Badmit's all right. And then coming back around to the music,
(49:31):
Paul Giovanni was the composer. He lived nineteen thirty three
through nineteen ninety and Yeah, there's there's a lot where
we're going to continue to say about the music of
The Wicker Man, a film that makes terrific use of
digetic music, contributing heavily to the uneasiness of the film
and also creating that feeling of uncertainty regarding what sort
of musical film are we watching. Paul Giovanni was an
(49:54):
American playwright, actor, director, a singer and musician, and we
see him in the film as well. The man singing
gently Johnny and the green Man in.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Oh, I didn't realize that was Paul Giovanni. He's a
handsome fella and he's a good singer.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah. Yeah, he also sings on corn Riggs and Landlord's daughter.
Giovanni wrote the music and much of the lyrics I
think corn Riggs is adapted from a Robert Burns song,
But this was his only musical film credit. But his
plays include The Crucifer of Blood, which was adapted in
nineteen ninety one for a TV film starring Charlton Heston
(50:32):
as Sherlock Holmes. What Yeah, and that is one of.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
The weirdest pieces of casting I've ever heard of.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Yeah, I've never seen it. I'm only vaguely aware of it.
And my initial reaction is much like when I hear
about anybody playing Sherlock Holmes. I'm my personal response is
You're not Sherlock Holmes. Jeremy Brett is Sherlock Holmes. But
then I read this is crazy. Just learned this literally today.
That ten years earlier before this TV adaptation of The
(51:03):
Crucifer of Blood, Heston played the role in an LA
stage adaptation of the play and Jeremy Brett played Watson.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
What Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
It doesn't seem right, It doesn't seem like it should
be real. It seems like this is some sort of
awful joke being played on me personally. But yeah, I'm
sure Jimmy Brett was a fine Watson.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
I gotta look this up. I just I am not
even finding myself able to imagine Charlton Heston as Sherlock Holmes.
That is weird. That is deep weird.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
I don't have any other information on it. I don't
know if he attempts a British accent or not. But
it definitely happened. It happened more than once. Now it's
not just Paul Giovanni on the music here. The collaborating
musicians responsible are credited as Magnet, headed up by composer
Gary Carpenter born nineteen fifty one, who was also associate
(51:53):
music director on the film. I watched a great interview
with Carpenter about the film's music and the winding path
the soundtrack took to actual physical release. All very insightful
and full of lots of technical details if you're interested
in like the recording details and all. But one observation
he made that I thought was interesting is he compares
the raw recording style of the film's music is being
(52:17):
very similar to later trends and just music recording in general.
So we have all these scenes where in the picture
musicians characters that our musicians are creating the music within
the scene but of course all of that is also
recorded separately in a sound studio to be used as
part of you know, to create the film score and soundtrack.
(52:40):
But it's the same people. So you have this interesting
connection there, and that's I think one of the reasons
that they said, well, we're going to record this in
such a way that there is a rawness to it
that you can He kept talking about how you can
hear like like some of the physical details of the instrumentation,
you know, I guess to sort of you in the
scene with the music creation and not just experiencing the
(53:05):
results of the musical act.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Yeah, so once again, yeah, the music is a very
important part of the Wickerman and is on the whole terrific.
I should also add that the score is widely available.
You can buy it, you can stream it, so after
you've watched The wicker Man, you can do what I've
been doing and just run run the score and the
soundtrack over and over again in your headphones.
Speaker 3 (53:27):
And you can wander around your house singing corn rigs
and bars.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yes, oh, we do that so much. All right. Now,
this is the point at which we would normally transition
into discussing the plot but I believe, given that we
have so much more to talk about, and we're going
to go ahead and cut this episode and we will
continue this in a part too, in the next installment
(53:54):
of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
That's right, gives you plenty of time to watch the movie.
If you did not heed our warning at the very
beginning and go watch it, then that's right.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
We haven't done this with many films. We were talking
about this before we enrolled here. We did it with
Highlander two, and we did it with Lynch's Doune. So
uh uh, yeah. You know, this is a film that
I think checks off all the boxes. It's a big film.
There's a lot that's been said about it. There's a
lot that we have to say about it. I mean,
I feel like I could spend a good half hour
(54:22):
just talking about key scenes, such as the scene all
the scenes that take place in the candy store slash
post office.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Oh well, okay, then this is something we should do
before we wrap up today's episode. What is your top
confection from the post office slash slash candy store in
summer Isle Town.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Oh, I mean there's so much. I mean, I love
this shop. This is one of those shops that feels
absolutely real, you know, I imagine they've taken any they took.
They took an existing shop and in Scotland and uh
one the Loton location, and dressed it up and it's
just filled with all of these you know, strange pagan treats.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
And you're saying they would really feed these nightmare images
to children.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
I guess. So you know within you know, in the
fictional world of the film, Yes, I mean, there are
several key standouts that there is, of course, the baby cake,
the kid cake. That's that's an easy favorite I think
for anybody. But the closer you look, there are all
these other little details. There are little pink elephants. I
(55:25):
don't know what the pink elephants represent within their their
their rights and observations, but they are there in their
numerous ones. There are some wonderful frogs or toads. Those
were my wife's favorites.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
Yeah, the chocolate rams heads with littless yellow eyes.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yes, yes, there are a number of hairs as well,
and some other strange babies that are are in the
shop in addition to this. So I don't know, I've
got to go with the kid cake or the elephants.
Probably the kid cake. It's the kid cake.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
How about the bride with the wreath of pink flowers
around her head with the eyes pinned open like Alex
in Clockwork? Orange good too? What are they showing that cake?
What does she have to watch? Are they playing the
lud big Band?
Speaker 2 (56:13):
I think the kid cake has maybe some I'd have
to watch the scene again, but based on a still
that I pulled up, I think there's like maybe a
jelly filling to it, which you know is fitting.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
Oh I see that. Yeah, you see them cut it
open and it's kind of spilling out.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah. Maybe it's like a jam roll jamcake sort of
a situation. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Now. Something that's really confusing is that in may Morrison's
post office slash sweet shop they serve green frog cakes
that you eat, But we also see in the same
shop later she's putting a live green frog in a
kid's mouth to cure her of a sore throat.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Well, yeah, but then that's not candy, that's medicinal. But
then she gets the hard candy afterwards as a treat
to sort of like, you know, that's right, to get
rid of the taste of the Frog.
Speaker 3 (56:59):
All right, Well, learn more about the Sweet Shop and
the rest of what Samurail has to offer to the
adventurous tourists. You'll have to come back next week for
part two of our series on the Wickerman.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
That's right, keep your appointment with the Wickerman next week
on Weird House Cinema. But in the meantime, we would
love to hear from you. If you already have thoughts
to share about the Wickerman, write in We'd love to
hear from you. Let's see. We should remind you that
if you want to follow Weird House Cinema online, we
have a letterboxed account. You can find us there. Our
(57:33):
username is weird House. We have a nice list of
all the movies we've covered over the years, sometimes a
peek ahead at what's coming up next, and you can
also follow us on Instagram at STBYM podcast. We're on
some other social networks as well, but those are the
main places to follow us.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, do suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello.
You can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
This is Joe McCormick. And today, as we are recording this,
it is May first, the sacred festival of May Day,
and so we are going to be talking, in accordance
with the season, about the classic nineteen seventy three British
film The wicker Man, which is usually usually grouped under
a genre people call full corror. Maybe we can quibble
(00:37):
in this episode about whether that title should or should
not be applied. And also note though we rarely do
this on Weird House Cinema, usually we keep it one
movie per episode. This is one we think we're going
to have to split into two parts because we love
the Wickerman and we're going to have a lot to
say about it. The only two other movies we've ever
(00:57):
done this with before were David Lynch's Doom and Highlander
to the Quickening, So putting the Wickerman in there, there
is cohesion to this trinity.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yes, these are three films that are often associated with
each other, but I do agree like there's a lot
to say about the Wickerman. We're probably going to go
on and on a bit in a good way, so
it's very possible we'll split here.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
So I'm very excited because The Wickerman is one of
my personal favorite movies. In fact, it's a mutual favorite
in our house. It's also one of my wife Rachel's
all time favorite movies. So we've got a lot of
like Wickerman merch in our house. I don't know if
you've seen any of that stuff, Rob, but we've got
like a Wickerman night light, and.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh man, I don't think I remember seeing any of this,
all right.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's great. Well, it lights up behind the wicker glows.
You know, there's kind of an orange glow behind a
Wickerman silhouette.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Actually, before we go on to any further detail, there
is something I definitely want to say. So in every
Weird House Cinema episode we end up discussing the plot
of the movie that recovering in some detail. So it's
always the case that you should watch the movie first
if you don't want to have anything spoiled. But if
you've never seen The Wickerman from nineteen seventy three, this
(02:13):
in particular is really a film I would recommend going
into knowing as little as possible. Obviously, it gets into
some horror territory, so if you're sensitive to horror themes,
you can look things up ahead of time. But otherwise,
if you have a general appetite for horror, I would strongly,
strongly encourage you to not even glance at a plot summary,
(02:34):
not listen to any more of this episode. Just go
ahead and watch it.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
But then come back and listen to this. Yes.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yes, So the first time I saw it, a friend
of mine when I was in college showed it to
me without telling telling me anything ahead of time. I'm
just really grateful I got to experience it that way.
The Wickerman is such an unusual and surprising film. It
is full of unexpected humor and horror and delight and despair,
(03:02):
and even now, like fifty years later, in a world
where a lot of movies you may have already seen
have been influenced by The Wickerman. If you haven't seen
it before and you don't know everything ahead of time,
I think it will keep you very intrigued and puzzled
in the best possible way.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah. Absolutely, It's a film that really stands on its own,
even though it is part of the folk car subgenre
and is very influential over the full car subgenre. I
think that the big three that are often referred to
or sixty eights, whitch Finder General, seventy one's Blood on
Satan's Claw, and then of course seventy three is The
wicker Man. But at the same time, nothing else is
(03:42):
really like The wicker Man, even other movies that have
the name the wicker Man. There are remakes of the
movie we're talking about here today are nothing like it.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We might have to get into the remake in part
two here. I think there really just is no other
movie like it is its own genre and perhaps still
the only movie in that genre. But anyway, if you
haven't seen The Wickerman yet and you want to pause
here and go watch it so you can, you can
see it unspoiled, and then come back, we will give
(04:13):
you a little music break, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Looking back, I think I saw The wicker Man for
the first time, probably like on I think it was
A and E. So I saw it on cable. Didn't
know what I was getting into, but it instantly loved
it and at some point decided, well I need to
own this forever. I'm going to buy a special edition
VHS of The wicker Man in a big clamshell case. Yes,
and I did, and of course it was replaced by
(04:55):
DVDs just you know a.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Few years later. Did you have the version with the
Wooden Box?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I did not, but I do remember seeing that at
the movie store at the mall. They had all these
special editions that one. I'm not sure if that was
an Anchor Bay release, but this was a time period
during which Anchor Bay was like the source for cool,
you know, DVDVHS editions of whatever your favorite genre films
(05:20):
happened to be.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I have to mention again I've said this on the
show before that someday we should come back and do
a series on weird House Cinema that's just movies that
had gimmick packaging, so like the release of the Wickerman
and the Wooden Box that I'm sure a lot of
people now just used to store whatever and who knows
what they put in there. Yeah, but also like the
(05:42):
Dead Pit with the light up eyes, and I'm sure
we could get a whole list of them. Gimmick packaging
on VHS tapes is just such a beautiful, beautiful thing,
like almost nothing gives me more weird, gleeful nostalgia.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I know a collector or two we could reach out
to for that. But yeah, The Wickerman just such a
great weird film, one that succeeds in creating not merely
an uncanny horror movie, but a thought provoking cinematic enigma.
So not to say you can't appreciate it purely as
a horror film, purely as this you know, roller coaster
ride and experience, but there's just a lot of rich
(06:17):
texture to the film that leaves you to make your
own interpretations. Like some of the big ones are of
course regard like what is the film saying or not
saying about pagan religious beliefs, about modern Christian faith, about
human religion in general.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah, one of my favorite things about it is that
the movie is saying a lot in a way, but
it's not really reducible to a message. Maybe I would
say it's not actually saying, it is singing, Like the
story is just overflowing with meaning and has the kind
of feeling of a commentary, but it is not really
(06:54):
reducible to a message or a thesis. There's no point
the movie really makes without out also sort of making
the opposite point. Also, obviously, the subject matter means that
the story is entangled with themes of religion, with religion, ritual,
and faith, which are three different things, but also power
(07:16):
and violence and the law. Some people talk about this
movie like they think the point of it is Christianity
is bad and Paganism was better. I've seen people talk
about it like they think. It kind of means that.
I feel like it would be hard to really say
that's the point of the movie, if you think about it.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
At the same time, it is certainly not saying the
opposite either. This movie is not Christian apologetics, and it
was considered extremely offensive by many Christians when it came out,
And so instead the religious themes are more it's just
sort of a gardening project of religious themes. Just themes
are sort of growing, and we're seeing how they grow
and interact. It's like throwing Christianity and Celtic Paganism into
(07:59):
a weird life flower bed together and seeing what pops
up and how they twist around each other.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, because I think it's
it's easy to reduce the film, you know, sort of
boil it down to Okay, here we have just a
it's a folk car tale. It's a you know, exploitation
your standard story about someone from the city or from civilization,
like going into a rural or more rural part of
their own country and invoke it and and encountering like,
(08:27):
you know, scary locals there. You know, you see this
a lot in fiction in general, but also in speculative
fiction and weird fiction and horror. There's certainly an element
of that here, not to say that it doesn't you know,
dip its toes and wade into those waters. But like
you said, it presents ideas on both sides. Like there's
(08:48):
there's certainly plenty to admire in the idealistic, close to nature,
sex positive society of Summer Isle, but we also come
to see the dangers of their ideology. Likewise, our protagonist
comes from a world of science and reason, and we
like science and reason, and then obviously that seems to
be a value that is celebrated within the context of
(09:11):
the film as well. But we also see that his
world as one of, at least in his own experience,
one of sexual repression and deep seated unhappiness. And at
the same time, these two worlds are linked in very
fundamental ways, and the film does a great job of,
sometimes very subtly, sometimes more overtly stitching those connections out.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Which we pause really quickly and just say, like, what
a one sentence plot summary is. Yeah, It's like. There
is a remote Scottish island called Summer Isle, and a
West Highland Police officer, a police detective named Sergeant Howie,
has been summoned to the island via an anonymous letter
saying that a girl on the island named Rowan Morrison
(09:54):
has gone missing. So Sergeant Howie, he is, by the way,
a devoutly religious Christian police inspector. He goes to the
island by seaplane to look for the missing girl and
to find out more about the note he received. So
that's the setup. And then one of the main things
we can say about the plot branching out from there
(10:14):
is that Sergeant how he discovers the inhabitants of this
remote Scottish island are not Christians, there in fact practicing
what seems to be a variant of Celtic paganism, celebrating
the old gods, the joyous old gods, and some of
the modes of their celebration are quite distressing to him
get the basics at least.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good setup here.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Another thing I want to mention about The Wickerman that
I'd love and find really unique about the movie is
the ambiguity of the main characters. So the protagonist of
the film, the detective protagonist, Sergeant Howie, is simultaneously so
sympathetic and so hateable. His mission is a good one.
(10:58):
He is trying to invent instigate the case of a
missing girl, and we see his dedication to his mission
in a way that, like, you know, obviously, if a
child goes missing, it is very good to want to
solve that problem and look out for the welfare of
the child, which we see he is genuinely invested in.
We also see the setting of summerle from his perspective
(11:20):
and are thus frustrated with the kind of squirreliness and
untrustworthiness of the people he encounters while he's trying to
solve this mystery. But also Sergeant Howie's personality and worldview
are so off putting. He is arrogant, self righteous, puritanical, rude,
(11:42):
and over and over again his behavior is just so
misaligned with how it seems he should be conducting the investigation.
He gets sidetracked from this genuinely noble quest in order
to screech at people about saying the word penis and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, like the scene where he disrupts the classroom.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah. Yeah, So this is not a type of protagonist
I can think of many other examples of, and I
find it such an interesting choice. He's kind of like
a combination of like Hercule Poirot, but not as but
without the virtuosity and detective work. I'll come back to
that in a minute. But then also, I don't know,
(12:23):
like one of the one of the judges in The
Crucible or like the Witchfinder General. He's like a totally
unsympathetically puritanical prude.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, so do we like him, like.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Not really sometimes not at all, But also we we
sympathize with what he's doing, and we want him to
find out what happened to the girl and solve the mystery,
because we do repeatedly since that something treacherous is afoot
and that Sergeant Howie might be the only person on
this island who is actually trying to do what's right.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, yeah, and that's that's important to realize and something
that I think you can sometimes lose track of if
you haven't seen the film in a long time, or rather,
if you've seen the film and you know the general plot,
you know what's gonna happen, and you're rewatching it. But yeah,
it's important to note like what he's not. Like, he's
not a pure punchline, like he's not he's not a
(13:16):
straight man to set up a joke. Yeah, and we'll
talk more about the tone here in a second. He's
also not a character that deserves punishment like it's. It's
you can easily imagine a cheap kind of like easy
comics Tales from the Crypt version of this exact story,
where his downfall is directly connected to a specific action
or choice on his part, or a deep seated character
(13:38):
flaw or something. And that's not really the case either,
or at least it's not that one thing that fits
into the the you know, the little box in the
in the Tales in the Crypt comic book. You know,
it's it's broader than that.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It's more complicated, right, I know exactly what you're saying. So, yeah,
he's not like a Tails from the Crypt protagonist to
his the classic format of that character is it is
someone who has done something quite evil, is like flawed
in a way that spells their own doom. They're going
to get a kind of karmic punishment, and we are
satisfied to see them get it. Howie is not like that.
(14:13):
His unlikeability is shallower and more esthetic. Again, it's just
that he is like a rude, arrogant, aggressive, prudish, self
righteous jerk. But again I come back to he is
a character like that, But we're with him because we
sense something is very wrong on this island and he
(14:35):
might be the only person who's able to do something
about it. But then again, is there something wrong on
this island? Another way the movie really keeps you guessing
is the characterization of the people positioned as Sergeant Howie's antagonists,
like Lord Summerle played by Christopher Lee in a masterful
(14:55):
performance We'll talk about more as we go on, or
Miss Rose by Diane Cilento, by sort of the default
structure of the mystery narrative. These are the suspects in
the mystery disappearance of Rowan Morrison, and they're so interesting
and likable and polite and have thoughtful perspectives, and they're
(15:17):
sometimes just positively jolly in the face of Howie being
like rude and aggressive to them. And I don't know,
like all the antagonists are so lovable, even when it
feels like they're covering something up or not being forthright
about what they know.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, yeah, another weird thing about the characters. This is
one of the only detective stories I can think of.
In fact, maybe it's the only one. Could you even
think of a possible counterexample, I don't know. One of
(15:54):
the only detective stories I know of where the protagonist
is not only unlikable but not particularly competent. Right, this
is what you always have a detective story about somebody
who has powers of reasoning and insights, Sherlock Holmes or Poirot,
you know, detectives who are skilled at solving a complicated puzzle.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Sergeant Howie is clearly shown in the movie to be
not a very good detective at all, and I think
this is an essential part of his characterization. He is
constantly missing important clues and constantly making bad choices that
lead to dead ends in his pursuit of information. I
(16:39):
think one of the main feelings that the audience will
generally have about Sergeant Howie is the feeling of pity.
It's like, oh boy, this poor guy, he is out
of his depth. Isn't that so strange to have a
what is essentially a detective story and that's a key
feature of your protagonist. Can you think of another story
(17:00):
like that?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
The only examples I can think of are examples where
the character is played for humor. Yeah, and this is
where we should probably talk about the tone of the film,
and I'll just goe and mentioned like humor wise, there
are lots of things I think you can you can
you will find humorous in The wicker Man, and I
think those things are intended. And yet at the same time,
(17:23):
it's not a comedy. It is played straight, and certainly
Sergeant Howie's character is played straight like it's you could
you could easily imagine a character like this tweaked into
more of like a Michael Scott from the office to area,
you know, or various like bumbling detective comedies we've seen
over the years, and that's not what this film is.
(17:43):
And of course, as well as we will continue to
discuss like it does defy easy categorization in a number
of ways.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah, I like the way you put it about the humor.
I think that's right. It's like, there is a lot
of intended humor in the movie, and it's iron in nature.
It's not in the form of overt jokes and gags.
But anyway, I just all these character dynamics, like the
unlikeability of the protagonist, the incompetence of the protagonist, and
(18:13):
the the likability and thoughtfulness of his antagonists. All these
things really keep you guessing, or they certainly did keep
me guessing when I first watched Again I when I
first saw this, I really had no idea where the
movie was going and was floored by the ending, the
famous surprise ending.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah. Yeah, And then that's the testament to a film
like this, if you're along for the ride, even if
you are beginning to wonder, like where could this ride
possibly be going.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Now, we've said several times we want to come back
to the tone of the movie. I think I said
at the beginning that it's questionable whether you should really
call this movie a horror movie. When people call it horror,
I think they're thinking mainly about the ending, which is
absolutely horrifying. But for like ninety ninety five percent of
(19:05):
the movie does it really feel like a horror film?
I don't think so. I think most of the runtime
it feels more like a bizarre, whimsical, religiously themed mystery.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah yeah, and even just feels at times feels like
a goofy musical, but not at like a laugh like
a horror horror horror goofy musical, but just like you
might ask yourself, what am I watching. My wife had
never seen it before, and she watched Party with me
last night, and I think that was kind of her reaction,
Like I was like, do you want to watch part
(19:37):
of this full car movie from the early nineteen seventies,
And She's like sure, and then she's like, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
This is funny. Last night, Rachel and I also showed
this movie to somebody for the first time and they
had a similar reaction, though, like what is going on
for much of the time, but I can report there
was a big thumbs up in the end awesome, but yeah, yeah,
it's so so. It's got that weird, not horror at
all tone for most of the runtime and then suddenly
(20:07):
bam the ending, which is I think one of the bleakest,
most terrifying scenes I can think of in all of
movie history. It is at once beautiful and terrible. It
makes your blood run cold and then warm and then
cold again.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty powerful and I in terms of
films we've watched on Weird House, I put it up
there with Seconds. Yeah, in terms of its impact, I
also want to add that even in the film's restored state,
which is generally how you'll find it I assume streaming
and certainly on home media, there's a raw as to
the footage that at times contributes to this feeling that
(20:44):
we're watching documentary footage of some sort, like it's a
documentary about the way people actually live on this island. Also,
you have a lot of non actors in there and musicians,
as we'll note, which adds to that feel like I'm
not watching actors, I'm watching real people and this must
be how they live. The production design, the locations are
all a part of this. And you could also probably
(21:06):
compare this to some rather different films from the nineteen
seventies that also have a similar feel, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
though again very different sort of horror film.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah, though this movie has a lot more of a
community feel than Texas Chainsaw Mascar does, which is very
isolated and you're only going to meet a few weird characters,
but it has that documentary visual style. What you mentioned
about the presence of non actors is I feel like
a big has a big impact on the ambience of
this film. Their scenes in a pub or out in
(21:37):
a you know, on a street beside a harbor, where
lots of people are milling around on screen and most
of them are clearly not actors, people kind of looking
weird and confused and mumbling, and it contributes greatly to
a sense of reality. Actually, yeah. And it also it
makes the important characters pop more, like when you know
(22:00):
all these kind of like old men who are just
kind of mumbling their lines a little bit as they're
standing around outside the end, and then we meet Lord
Somerle and suddenly it's Christopher Lee and you're like awed
by his presence.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Now.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Another thing that is kind you could think of as
just an extension of the very unusual tone of the
movie is the fact that it's also sort of a musical.
Like it not only prominently features music with lyrics on
the soundtrack, it has several diegetic musical numbers where the
characters sing and even sing into the camera. Is there
(22:36):
another horror movie like that. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, I can't think of another film, certainly a horror
film that uses music quite the same way.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
One thing that I think is interesting about the use
of music is that only the characters who live on
summerle seem to know that they're in a musical. So like, normally,
if you're in a musical, all the characters saying, or
all of the major characters sing. The protagonist certainly sings,
But Sergeant Howie does not sing except we see him
(23:05):
again it's diegetic music. We see him singing him at
church at the beginning of the movie. That's just a
scene where he's in church. He never like looks into
the camera and sings the way say Britt Eklund does
or the way Christopher Lee does. So it's only the
Pagans that are allowed to actually be in a musical
as musical players. Sergeant Howie is just sort of living
(23:29):
in their musical world without getting to be an agent
of music himself.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah, yeah, what if he had sung though, that would
have been interesting taken in taken more of it like
a Schmigadoon direction where he realizes that he has to
sing in order to in order to connect with these characters.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
M yeah, maybe things would have turned out differently for him.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
He does sing a little the end. He does sing
a little the end. I think, well, we'll get back
to that. And while he may sing just a little bit,
he never dances. And dances is also a big part
of a number of these musical numbers where we see
some sort of ritual dance taking place.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
In fact, at one point when he's in disguise, he
gets yelled at for not dancing because he's in disguise
going down the May Day parade and uh at one
and Christopher Lee turns and sees him just kind of
wandering down the road instead of, I don't know, doing
whatever he's supposed to be doing, and he yells at him.
Cut some capers, mad, you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Got time to glance, You got time to dance?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, okay, I don't think we can possibly do an
elevator pitch for Wickerman.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
No, it pretty much stands on its own. So let's
let's go ahead in here just a little bit from
the what I believe is the original trailer.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
I got a tail on flo whose lightest work would head?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
O up my soul, prett, young blood.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
I am here to investigate the disappearance. I'm a young girl.
Where is Rowan Morrison? If Ruin Morrison existed, we would
not I should spect Manda the name of.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
God, woman, What kind of mother are you that can
stand by and see your own child slaughtered?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
You are the fool of them.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
Liars. You are despicable little liars. Where if Roan Morrison,
if Morrison existed, we would not. I suspect Manda she was,
but you are the fool. Where is Rowan Morrison? Oh?
(25:55):
My god?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
All right? If you would like to see The wicker
Man again? Widely available in all formats, and it's cult
following has seen multiple special editions released over the years.
There have been a few different cuts. I'm not sure
to what degree we're going to get into talking about
different cuts of the film. I think there are like
three major versions, like a theatrical version, and then they
added some minutes to it, and then they took away
(26:28):
a few minutes. But definitely watch it in you know,
the best format you can get. Maybe shopple around a
little bit on those different forms. I watched it in
a restored form on Blu Ray one that I rented
from Atlanta's own Videodrome from their full car subsection. Nice.
But I don't know which edition it was. I know
(26:49):
it had like baked in trailers at the beginning, which
I did not like. I feel like, especially now, it
makes me think it was maybe a slightly older Blu
Ray because it's more and more Blu rays these days,
I feel like are treated like the premium item they are,
and they're like less tied to timely trailers for motion pictures.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Wait, what was what were your bakedin trailers for? Mine
was for a re release of American Psycho. Yes, yes, okay,
so we've got the same disc, do we?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Okay, So then you probably watched what's called the final cut,
I think so, And the final cut is I think
the latest of the major cuts of the film. Did
your version also have some scenes that were in much
lower film quality than most of the movie?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I believe? So? Yeah, restored sequences, yes.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So, like the scene where Christopher Lee is outside the
inn at night talking to a slug about how he
wants to be like him.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Oh so good.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yeah, that's good. That was not in the original version
of the movie that I saw. I think the first
one I saw was the theatrical cut. But so that's
a restored scene that the film does not look great,
but I'm glad it's there, and it's worth it to have,
even though it's cutting back and forth between extremely different
levels of fidelity. It's worth it to have that.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, And it helps too that the best fidelity in
the film is not like so great that it feels
as jarring or at least the Yeah, that's the impression
I have. Alright, Let's get into the people behind this
(28:30):
film a bit, starting with the director, of course. The
director was Robin Hardy, who lived nineteen twenty nine through
twenty sixteen. English director who started out directing for the
National Film Board of Canada, then Yeah Yeah, then PBS
aligned Soo World Theater, before moving to London to partner
with screenwriter Anthony Schaeffer to co found an advertising agency.
(28:52):
The wicker Man Again, released in seventy three, filmed in
seventy two, I believe, was his first feature directorial project
and by far his most impactful. He only followed it
up with two other films nineteen eighty six is The Fantasist,
and twenty eleven's The Wicker Tree, based on his own novel,
Cowboys for a Christ. He also has a story credit
(29:13):
on nineteen eighty eights Forbidden's Son. After The Wickerman, he
returned to the US and mostly wrote historical novels and worked,
according to his obituary in The Guardian, as a consultant
in the historical theme park business. David Piner is the
novelist the novel ritual from nineteen sixty seven. This apparently
is what they paid to adapt it. It's not one
(29:35):
of these cases where they just kind of ripped it off,
like they paid to do the adaptation but then ultimately
deviated from a lot of it. I haven't read it,
but I'm to understand it.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
It concerns, maybe on some level, the same skeleton of
a plot line where a police investigator is checking out
some rural community that ends up having some some you know,
pagan elements to their religious rights.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
No way to confirm this, just to guess, but I
like to imagine that this movie was at least in
part based on something from Christopher Lee's apocryphal collection of
Occult Tomes.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. Now, Anthony Shaffer that we mentioned,
who wrote the screenplay. He lived nineteen twenty six through
two thousand and one British writer whose previous credits included
Alfred Hitchcock's nineteen seventy two film Frenzy, which, if you
haven't seen it, seen it as quite a solid psycho
killer film, starring John Finch and Barry Foster.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
I've actually never seen that one. I love Hitchcock, but.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Oh it's good. It hasn't as I recall it as
a really nice long shot.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
At one point we had some movies with those yet
was this his second to last movie?
Speaker 2 (30:43):
It was pretty late.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
And also Shaffer wrote the two man play turned film
Sleuth from the same year, starring Lawrence Olivier and Michael Kine,
and he'd later work on Let's See. There was a
whole series of seventies and eighties Agatha Christie film adaptations
in which Peter Eustonoff played Pierrot and his identical twin brother.
Peter Schaffer, who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty sixteen,
(31:07):
was also an acclaimed screenwriter whose stage in screen credits
include Equis and Amedeus Wow talented siblings.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Yes, there is a lot to love about The Wickerman,
but I think it has a particularly fantastic screenplay for
a horror film. Not to insult horror films generally, but
you know, I'm a lover of horror, but I'm aware
that a lot of horror writing does it is attracted
to cliches, like a magnet sort of, and this screenplay,
(31:38):
even though now we live in a world where a
lot of other stories I think have copied a lot
from The Wickerman, but at least for its own time,
incredibly unusual and unique and remarkably I think free of
cliche is just an original and authentic exploration.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Absolutely all right. Getting into the cast here, playing Sergeant Howie,
we have Edward Woodwarton, who lived nineteen thirty through two
thousand and nine, British actor of stage, screen and TV,
who at the time was best known in the UK
for his portrayal of Secret Service agent Callen on the
TV show of the same name. Now, when I first
watched The wicker Man, I knew him mostly from advertisements
(32:22):
for the TV show The Equalizer, which ran eighty five
through eighty nine.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
What does an equalizer do.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
I don't know. It's not a show I ever actually watched,
but I know I just was like, well, that's the equalizer.
He equalizes.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
It sounds like a piece of audio equipment.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah. I don't know if the equalizer on the TV
show is a cop, if he's like a fixer, Like
which side of the law he's aligned with? Is he
a secret agent? I'm not sure, but he equalizes, so
there's some implied neutrality there.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
I guess I've got a seventy nine two equalizer man.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
He has a ton of credits, though, including nineteen sixty
four's Beckett, nineteen eighty's Breaker Morant. He had the title
role in that. He's in nineteen eighty four as a
Christmas carol. He plays the ghost of Christmas Present in
that one. This is one of the Christmas carols that
my family watched a lot when I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
That's so funny. The ghost of Christmas Present is supposed
to be jolly and full of good cheer, which is
not at all in the role I'm familiar with.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, yeah, it's very different role. He pops up in
two thousand and seven's Hot Fuzz. His only other horror
films is that I'm aware of are nineteen seventy one's
Bloodsuckers and nineteen eighty two's The Appointment. And I would
also be remiss if I didn't mention that he plays
Sol in the nineteen eighty five King David movie. That's
the one that has George Eastman in it.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
This is like the second reference to this in like
three weeks.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Everything comes back to George Eastman. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
I think Edward Woodward should get a lot of love
for this performance because it's kind of a thankless role.
Like it is so much easier to love the Pagans
in the movie, to love Christopher Lee, and to love
Diane Celento and Ingrid Pitt, you know, all the local
characters who are sort of the colorful, interesting wild ones.
(34:09):
As we've said many times, the protagonist of this movie
is not very likable. He's kind of a stick in
the mud. He's kind of a jerk, and so I
think it's very easy to miss how important the portrayal
of this character is to the effect of the story
in the end. And Edward Woodward is great in the role.
He he doesn't try to steal the show and make
(34:29):
his character more likable than he needs to be. Instead,
he's he's exactly what is called for by the script
and he's he's great. He's great.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, And it's a complex role. It's arguably far more
complex than any of the other characters that we encounter
in the picture. I was watching an interview with the
director and Hardy really gives a lot of credit to
Woodward for creating this character on the screen. Like he says,
you know, like with Christopher Lee's character, we had these
(34:58):
parameters set out and Christopher Lee delivered, you know, knocked
out of the park. But there was a lot to
Sergeant Howie that really had to be created in the performance.
And he gives Woodward all the credit in the world
for doing that.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
That's right. A lot of how we feel about how
he isn't even in his lines. It's in kind of
facial expressions and reactions. He brings such a sense of
visible frustration to the character in every scene almost you
can just see him just kind of like shaking with annoyance.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, and wrestling with what he's seeing. You know, there's
a lot of he's not telling you his internal monologue
about how conflicted he may feel about certain things or tempted.
He may feel about certain things. It's just in the performance, you.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Know, when he's trying to say hide to maybe a
prurient sexual interest that he knows he should not have,
but is part of his character as well. So yeah,
totally agree. Woodward is excellent.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
All right, Let's move on to Lord summer Isle, who,
as we've been mentioning, is played by the Great Christopher
Lee who lived nineteen twenty two through twenty fifteen. This
is our seventh Weird House Cinema selection featuring Sir Christopher Lee,
you know, as we as you know, best known for
such roles as Sarimon the White and Lord of the Rings,
Dracula in multiple Hammer horror films and some non Hammer
(36:20):
horror films, and Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels.
I just caught Revenge of the Sith on the big
screen in its re release, and his performance is brief
but very memorable, has a nice little arc to it,
probably I would say arguably stands out among his very
late career performances.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
I've said this before that I'm not as big a
fan of the Star Wars prequels, though not to poo
poo anybody who does love them, but for me at least,
even in my least favorite, which is Attack of the Clones,
when Christopher Lee shows up, it's just it's a whole
other movie now, Like I love him, and yeah, so
Christopher Lee is one of my favorites, but this is
(36:59):
it's got to be. This is my all time favorite
Christopher Lee role. The Wickerman is head and shoulders above
them all to me.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah, I mean, And this is an opinion that Christopher
Lee shared as well. By most accounts, the film was
reportedly a real passion project for him. We mentioned how
he was pretty much in the room, being one of
the people who brought it together to begin with, and
he claimed, and I have no reason to doubt him,
to have waived off any payment for the role that
(37:28):
basically like they couldn't afford him, they couldn't afford his rate.
And he's like, well, don't worry about it. I want
this film to be made. And then when the film
studio opted to release it in the UK without a
screening as part of a double feature, the second half
of the double feature with Don't Look Now.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Which is a great horror movie.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, yeah, it's a very, very well received picture. I
don't know if it's these are two strange kind of
an odd match to pair them together. Yes, but that
kind of also shows you that the studio seemingly didn't
really know what to do with the film, and we're
just kind of like, we'll just put it out there,
we're not going to screen it. But Lee then personally
calls all the film critics that he knew of to
(38:06):
encourage them to see the film and offering to buy
their ticket if they needed him to.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Wow, that's great. Uh and and I love that because
I'm pretty sure, actually I don't know what the original
critical reception was, but I know the studio that owned
that owned the Wickerman hated it when when it was
coming to I think it was emi like they famously
like were panicking because they thought the movie was so
(38:32):
bad and they were trying to find ways to avoid
releasing it or to to cut it down. I think
I think they just hated what they had on their
hands and they didn't realize that it was a masterpiece.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, yeah, there there. This seems to definitely be the
be true to some extent, but then there's also some
seems to be some myth making on top of that.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Okay, you know, like I said, this.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Is a film that's been very popular for a long time.
There's been a lot of interviews and a lot of comments,
Like I saw one story that I'm I'm casting some
doubt on that Rod Stewart tried to buy all the
copies of it at one point so he could destroy
his then girlfriend's nude scene. Things like that. I don't know,
I'm just going to pass that by.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Was he dating Britt Ecklund.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I believe so, yes, Okay. Also it said that later on,
when the film was released in the United States and
seventy four, Lee flew to the States on his own
dime to promote it as well, and would just appear
on basically any show to talk about the Wickerman.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
That just filled me with happiness.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
That's gorgeous, and as we've been saying, it is a
delightful performance from Lee, which I think is saying something
because while Lee is always a fine screen presence, he
almost always plays a rather grim and serious character, often
with a malicious glint in his eyes, and for much
of the film, the Lord Summerle that we experience is
a joyous, carefree figure. I swear Lee, who is I
(39:53):
think around fifty at the time, really feels younger and
certainly more energetic in this role than any anything else
I've seen him in from before or after this picture.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
He has the energy of a twenty two year old
hippie who does clowning school. Yes, yeah, he's just he's
just magical. In the movie, he's bursting with positive intensity,
occasionally turning threatening and then just turning very friendly and charming.
Speaker 5 (40:21):
Again.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
He has, in fact, he has kind of the quality
of a pagan god. You can feel him almost becoming
superhumanly enlarged and striding over the fields, beaming down sunshine
at everyone around him.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
That's good, that's good. Yeah. So these are our two
main characters, I guess in the film, but we have
a number of very interesting supporting roles, starting with I
believe we mentioned her already, but Diane Cialino plays Miss Rose,
who I believe is the town teacher. She's teaching to
I don't know what other like a lot of it's
a small town, so a lot of people have multiple
(40:58):
roles here.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah, double book on a lot of occupations in the town.
Miss Rose is a great character in dian Cia Lento
is excellent in this role. I mean, I'm gonna sound
repetitive with the cast because everybody's so good, but she
is great. She has such a gracious, almost flowing water
(41:18):
kind of way of reacting to Sergeant Howie's aggressive inquiry.
You know, she's at many points she is resisting his investigation.
But it's just hard to feel like she could possibly
be a bad guy, you know.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah, Yeah, she Like a number of the other townsfolk
that we meet, they're very likable and they seem very
sensible in the face of his investigation.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Yes, they're always making good points against Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
So. Cialento lived nineteen thirty two through twenty eleven Australian
born actress of stage and screen who is nominated for
an Oscar in nineteen sixty four for her supporting performance
in the movie Tom Jones. Her other credits include sixty
five's The Agony and the Ecstasy, nineteen sixty seven Zombre,
and nineteen seventy two ZPG. She married Anthony Schaeffer in
(42:13):
nineteen eighty five, and from her previous marriage, she was
the mother of Jason Connery. I've read that she was
a self professed white witch at the time of the
Wickerman's filming and was personally involved in various details, including
the fire dance. And at one point there's a tarot
card on the ceiling and I believe I've read that
she drew that or painted it.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Oh cool.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Oh. And then of course there's the innkeeper's daughter, Willow,
played by britt Eklund.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Also great. Britt Ekland gets a full on musical number
where she turns and looks into the camera while she's
singing yes.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah. Born nineteen forty two, Swiss actress, model and singer
who certainly delivers charisma and sex appeal for several key
scenes in the film, a character who, in Lord Somerle's words,
is the embodiment of the Goddess of Love. Ecklunn was
a rather major celebrity of the day and appeared in
some notable early nineteen seventies films, including seventy one's Get Carter,
(43:21):
nineteen seventy two's Asylum, and nineteen seventy four Is the
Man with the Golden Gun, which of course also featured
Christopher Lee.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Sometimes I watch that movie as a kind of it's
a James Bond movie. Yes, probably one of the worst
James Bond movies. It's not very good, but as I
say about some movies on here, it's not very good,
but it's a good time. It's just a nice little
(43:48):
wicker Man reunion to watch every now and then. I
seem to recall the character she plays in The Man
with the Golden Gun is supposed to be kind of
not very smart, like she's kind of always like clumsily.
I don't she's like a spy, but she's constantly like, whoops,
getting bumped into the trunk of a car. And yeah,
I don't know. It doesn't make a lot of sense,
(44:09):
but it's not a great movie. But in The Wickerman
she is not dumb. She's rather crafty.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Actually yeah she uh you know, she behaves almost like
a like a siren character. Yeah, and she has at
least one key uh scene that features nudity, and I
want to want to highlight that. A lot of times,
you know, the nudity and films of this era and
certainly of the genre or are more about pure titillation.
(44:35):
And you know, not to say that these scenes are
removed of titillation, but but there's a there's a lot
more going on here, and I feel like they're they're
overall very well crafted. In the extra that I featured,
Hardy talks a little bit about the Key Brett Acklin
nude scene and how they shot it and all, and
there's some there are actually some fun stories about that
(44:55):
where they actually had to send off for someone to
come in to be the butt double for that scene.
They had to get somebody from like a nightclub in Scotland.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Oh, that's funny, But we should say we've been speaking
about them like they might be two different scenes. The
nude scene is also the musical number Yes, yes, yeah,
and it is the scene where britt Eklund is really
dedicated to making Sergeant Howie starts sinning.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah. Yeah, he's in another room. But this the end
has very thin walls and you can hear everything, like
the people downstairs can hear everything. Howd he can hear everything? Yeah,
we'll get into that when we talk about the specific scene,
all right. And then rounding out the our trio of
blonde seventy starlets in this picture, we have Ingrid Pitt
(45:44):
playing the librarian. She lived nineteen thirty seven through twenty ten.
Something of a Hammer Horror regular, the Polish born actress
who started out on the East Berlin Stage. Is best
known for roles in such films as nineteen sixty eights
Where Eagles Dare, nineteen seventies The Vampire Lovers, and nineteen
seventy one's Countess Eddracula. Her other credits include episodes of
(46:05):
Doctor Who, nineteen seventy one is The House that Dripped
Blood and nineteen eighty five's Transmutations. We'll have more to
say about her when we talk about the specific one
of the main scenes that features the librarian.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Yes, now, you mentioned the character of Willow McGregor. That's
britt Eklund. But we also meet her father, the Innkeeper
aka the Landlord, who is an extremely odd critter.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yes Yes. Played by Lindsey Kemp, who lived nineteen thirty
eight through twenty eighteen. He was a British dancer, actor, teacher,
mime artist and choreographer. His other acting credits include seventy
two Savage Messiah, a nineteen eighty four TV adaptation of
A Midsummer Night's Dream in which he plays Puck, and
nineteen ninety eight's Velvet gold Mine. Very interesting character in
(46:54):
his own right. He was a mentor to both David
Bowie and Kate bush.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Hats off to him. I love every he's on screen.
He's got this wild kind of raised eyebrow that's just
always like, oh, you know you're a policeman, are you.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, he's great. There is always that kind of like
a sly judgment taking place with him. Yeah, wonderful little role.
I mean all the so, all the towns folk are great,
the non actors, the musicians, and then the various character
actors here and there. One that really stands out though,
is Aubrey Morris playing the old gardener Slash the grave Digger. Yes,
(47:33):
a great British character actor whose supporting roles include films
like seventy one a Clockwork, Orange Blood from the Mummy's
Tomb and Lyssomania, also nineteen eighty five's Life Force and
the She Creature from two thousand and one. I would
say one of the most memorable locals we meet in
the film.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
He has a fantastic moment where Sergeant Howie asks him
where their minister is and he just says and starts
laughing and walks away.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah, he's really he We meet him in the graveyard,
a great scene in the graveyard. Well we'll probably get
to but yeah, He lived nineteen twenty six through twenty fifteen.
All right, now, one more local man that I want
to mention here. There's a fishmonger character, and I'm not
sure I one hundred percent remember the fishmonger. Do you
remember the fishmonger?
Speaker 3 (48:23):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
It's possible his scene was even cut. I'm not certain.
If nothing else, we may see him in the background.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
There are a lot of rosy cheeked, gray haired, partly
balding old men who stand around in the background of
many scenes at the pub, at the harbor, and so forth,
at the May Day celebration and don't really get in
many individual moments of their own. But it's a it's
a but overall, it's a big community ensemble, and so
there are a lot of characters you're not going to
(48:49):
remember very specifically.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah. Well, the fishmonger is played by John Young, who
lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen ninety six. And this is
the guy who played the modern day historian that A
Knight murders in nineteen seventy five's Monty Python and the
Holy Grail.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Oh I remember him, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, he shows up like it's, you know, a television
show about medieval history. And then at one point a
night rides past him and slays him with a sword. Yeah,
it's a good gag. Yeah, as John Young. He was
also in Life of Brian in seventy nine and eighty
one's Chariots of Fire. Oh, and he's also in Time
Badmit's all right. And then coming back around to the music,
(49:31):
Paul Giovanni was the composer. He lived nineteen thirty three
through nineteen ninety and Yeah, there's there's a lot where
we're going to continue to say about the music of
The Wicker Man, a film that makes terrific use of
digetic music, contributing heavily to the uneasiness of the film
and also creating that feeling of uncertainty regarding what sort
of musical film are we watching. Paul Giovanni was an
(49:54):
American playwright, actor, director, a singer and musician, and we
see him in the film as well. The man singing
gently Johnny and the green Man in.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Oh, I didn't realize that was Paul Giovanni. He's a
handsome fella and he's a good singer.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah. Yeah, he also sings on corn Riggs and Landlord's daughter.
Giovanni wrote the music and much of the lyrics I
think corn Riggs is adapted from a Robert Burns song,
But this was his only musical film credit. But his
plays include The Crucifer of Blood, which was adapted in
nineteen ninety one for a TV film starring Charlton Heston
(50:32):
as Sherlock Holmes. What Yeah, and that is one of.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
The weirdest pieces of casting I've ever heard of.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Yeah, I've never seen it. I'm only vaguely aware of it.
And my initial reaction is much like when I hear
about anybody playing Sherlock Holmes. I'm my personal response is
You're not Sherlock Holmes. Jeremy Brett is Sherlock Holmes. But
then I read this is crazy. Just learned this literally today.
That ten years earlier before this TV adaptation of The
(51:03):
Crucifer of Blood, Heston played the role in an LA
stage adaptation of the play and Jeremy Brett played Watson.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
What Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
It doesn't seem right, It doesn't seem like it should
be real. It seems like this is some sort of
awful joke being played on me personally. But yeah, I'm
sure Jimmy Brett was a fine Watson.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
I gotta look this up. I just I am not
even finding myself able to imagine Charlton Heston as Sherlock Holmes.
That is weird. That is deep weird.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
I don't have any other information on it. I don't
know if he attempts a British accent or not. But
it definitely happened. It happened more than once. Now it's
not just Paul Giovanni on the music here. The collaborating
musicians responsible are credited as Magnet, headed up by composer
Gary Carpenter born nineteen fifty one, who was also associate
(51:53):
music director on the film. I watched a great interview
with Carpenter about the film's music and the winding path
the soundtrack took to actual physical release. All very insightful
and full of lots of technical details if you're interested
in like the recording details and all. But one observation
he made that I thought was interesting is he compares
the raw recording style of the film's music is being
(52:17):
very similar to later trends and just music recording in general.
So we have all these scenes where in the picture
musicians characters that our musicians are creating the music within
the scene but of course all of that is also
recorded separately in a sound studio to be used as
part of you know, to create the film score and soundtrack.
(52:40):
But it's the same people. So you have this interesting
connection there, and that's I think one of the reasons
that they said, well, we're going to record this in
such a way that there is a rawness to it
that you can He kept talking about how you can
hear like like some of the physical details of the instrumentation,
you know, I guess to sort of you in the
scene with the music creation and not just experiencing the
(53:05):
results of the musical act.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Yeah, so once again, yeah, the music is a very
important part of the Wickerman and is on the whole terrific.
I should also add that the score is widely available.
You can buy it, you can stream it, so after
you've watched The wicker Man, you can do what I've
been doing and just run run the score and the
soundtrack over and over again in your headphones.
Speaker 3 (53:27):
And you can wander around your house singing corn rigs
and bars.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yes, oh, we do that so much. All right. Now,
this is the point at which we would normally transition
into discussing the plot but I believe, given that we
have so much more to talk about, and we're going
to go ahead and cut this episode and we will
continue this in a part too, in the next installment
(53:54):
of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
That's right, gives you plenty of time to watch the movie.
If you did not heed our warning at the very
beginning and go watch it, then that's right.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
We haven't done this with many films. We were talking
about this before we enrolled here. We did it with
Highlander two, and we did it with Lynch's Doune. So
uh uh, yeah. You know, this is a film that
I think checks off all the boxes. It's a big film.
There's a lot that's been said about it. There's a
lot that we have to say about it. I mean,
I feel like I could spend a good half hour
(54:22):
just talking about key scenes, such as the scene all
the scenes that take place in the candy store slash
post office.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Oh well, okay, then this is something we should do
before we wrap up today's episode. What is your top
confection from the post office slash slash candy store in
summer Isle Town.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Oh, I mean there's so much. I mean, I love
this shop. This is one of those shops that feels
absolutely real, you know, I imagine they've taken any they took.
They took an existing shop and in Scotland and uh
one the Loton location, and dressed it up and it's
just filled with all of these you know, strange pagan treats.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
And you're saying they would really feed these nightmare images
to children.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
I guess. So you know within you know, in the
fictional world of the film, Yes, I mean, there are
several key standouts that there is, of course, the baby cake,
the kid cake. That's that's an easy favorite I think
for anybody. But the closer you look, there are all
these other little details. There are little pink elephants. I
(55:25):
don't know what the pink elephants represent within their their
their rights and observations, but they are there in their
numerous ones. There are some wonderful frogs or toads. Those
were my wife's favorites.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
Yeah, the chocolate rams heads with littless yellow eyes.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yes, yes, there are a number of hairs as well,
and some other strange babies that are are in the
shop in addition to this. So I don't know, I've
got to go with the kid cake or the elephants.
Probably the kid cake. It's the kid cake.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
How about the bride with the wreath of pink flowers
around her head with the eyes pinned open like Alex
in Clockwork? Orange good too? What are they showing that cake?
What does she have to watch? Are they playing the
lud big Band?
Speaker 2 (56:13):
I think the kid cake has maybe some I'd have
to watch the scene again, but based on a still
that I pulled up, I think there's like maybe a
jelly filling to it, which you know is fitting.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
Oh I see that. Yeah, you see them cut it
open and it's kind of spilling out.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah. Maybe it's like a jam roll jamcake sort of
a situation. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Now. Something that's really confusing is that in may Morrison's
post office slash sweet shop they serve green frog cakes
that you eat, But we also see in the same
shop later she's putting a live green frog in a
kid's mouth to cure her of a sore throat.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Well, yeah, but then that's not candy, that's medicinal. But
then she gets the hard candy afterwards as a treat
to sort of like, you know, that's right, to get
rid of the taste of the Frog.
Speaker 3 (56:59):
All right, Well, learn more about the Sweet Shop and
the rest of what Samurail has to offer to the
adventurous tourists. You'll have to come back next week for
part two of our series on the Wickerman.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
That's right, keep your appointment with the Wickerman next week
on Weird House Cinema. But in the meantime, we would
love to hear from you. If you already have thoughts
to share about the Wickerman, write in We'd love to
hear from you. Let's see. We should remind you that
if you want to follow Weird House Cinema online, we
have a letterboxed account. You can find us there. Our
(57:33):
username is weird House. We have a nice list of
all the movies we've covered over the years, sometimes a
peek ahead at what's coming up next, and you can
also follow us on Instagram at STBYM podcast. We're on
some other social networks as well, but those are the
main places to follow us.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, do suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello.
You can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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