The Wicker Man is sometimes described as a
horror movie, but in reality it is a weird and idiosyncratic tale of pagan
rites and strange inbred folk covering up the disappearance of a girl. However,
for all its oddball qualities it acquired something of a cult status. The film tells the story of a police sergeant
called Howie (Edward Woodward) who is sent to a Scottish island called Summerisle to investigate
the case of a missing girl only to be confronted with strange, uncooperative islanders. During his time on the
island Howie witnesses the bizarre pagan
rites practised by the locals, such as toads placed in the mouth to cure
whooping cough. Not to mention a
considerable amount of open nudity.
Most of the locations used in the film are
in Dumfries and Galloway, but the filming
starts further north. In the opening
credits Skye puts in an appearance as Howie is seen flying in a boat plane over
Summerisle, with the Old Man of Storr and the Quiraing visible from the
plane. Howie lands his plane offshore
from the lovely village
of Plockton in Ross and
Cromarty, where he is greeted by a none too welcoming group of locals who try
to make out that he can't come ashore because it is private property.
Plockton.
During his stay, Howie stays at an inn
called The Green Man, where the landlord's daughter (Britt Ekland) tries and
fails to seduce him, Howie being a strict believer in no sex before marriage. The exterior of the inn was shot in Gatehouse
of Fleet using a building which was not a pub but a grade B listed building
called the Cally Estate Office. The
interior shots, meanwhile, were done inside the Ellangowan Hotel in Creetown, sadly now closed. The hotel was a magnet for fans of the film, with photographs of the
'Green Man' scenes on the walls.
Much of the film's action is set in the
fictional Summerisle, a community led by Lord Summerisle (the recently departed
Christopher Lee). The mansion he lives in is actually Culzean Castle
near Maybole, South Ayrshire. The
castle, run by the National Trust for Scotland and former home of the Marquess
of Ailsa, chief of the Kennedy Clan, was completed in the late 18th century
with Robert Adam as its architect and occupies a dramatic clifftop
setting.
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| Culzean Castle house and gardens 01. Photo by Jamesx12345, via Wikimedia Commons. |
Various scenes were filmed around the Isle
of Whithorn in the far south-west of Scotland, in reality a village
rather than an island. The ruined St
Ninian's Chapel lies in the 'Isle', but it was St Ninian's Cave, a sea cave 4
miles from Whithorn Abbey, which featured in The Wicker Man. The cave is where Howie discovers the
disappeared girl, Rowan. Summerisle School is represented by a cottage in
Anwoth, about a mile west of Gatehouse of Fleet. The cottage is available to rent as a holiday let. Anwoth's Old Kirk and its graveyard also feature in the film, the latter
being where Rowan's body is meant to be buried.
A few miles to the south-east is the county town of Kirkcudbright, where
the picturesque streets and alleys form the backdrop for a number of
scenes. A shop near the police station is
used as Rowan's mother's shop.
But it is back in the Isle of Whithorn area that the
film's dramatic finale was filmed, on a clifftop at Burrowhead near Cutcloy, a former hotbed
of smuggling from and to the Isle of Man.
The islanders decide to make a sacrifice to the Sun God following a poor
harvest the previous year, and the unfortunate Howie is the chosen victim,
evidently due to his virgin status. The
scene shows Howie stripped naked and placed inside a giant wicker man statue,
which is then set alight. Animal lovers
might be distressed at the sight of animals in the cage with Howie. However, the production team insisted at the
time that no animals were harmed in the making of the film, that they were
repeatedly put inside the cage and then taken out again for different shots so
that they did not succumb to the flames.
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| Burrowhead - Sea Cliffs - geograph.org.uk - 1315956. Photo by Gordon Elliott, via Wikimedia Commons. |
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