The cult classic The Wicker Man will be shown in a restored version on 8 August at the Locarno Film Festival as part of a tribute to British actor Christopher Lee who will receive the event's Moët Chandon Excellence Award.
The restored version appears to fulfil director Robin Hardy's original vision of the narrative and was compiled after a world-wide appeal for missing footage by the production company Studiocanal UK who will release the film in UK cinemas on 27 September and on Blu-ray on 14 October.
The restoration was helped by the discovery of a print of The Wicker Man in the States which was based on Hardy's original and for which he had worked with Abraxas, the American distributors at the time.
"This version has never been restored before, has never been shown in UK theatres before, and has never been converted to Blu-ray before. This version of The Wicker Man will (optimistically!) been known as The Final Cut," said Hardy.
The veteran director confirmed that it was the cut he had put together with Abraxas in 1979 for the US release. This has previously been known as the "Middle Version" and was in turn assembled from a 35mm print of the original edit he had made in the UK in 1973, but which was never released. Hardy added: "I am delighted that a 1979 Abraxas print has been found as I also put together this cut myself, and it crucially restores the story order to that which I had originally intended."
The crucial point to Hardy is that the events on the island take place over a 72-hour period and that Lord Summerisle is established as a character far earlier than in the bastardised UK release print from the Seventies. Another important inclusion is the performance of the song Gently Johnny, which is key in signaling both the strange and unusual community into which Sergeant Howie is intruding, and its complicity in events on the island.
Hardy declares himself well satisfied by the result: "The film as I saw it in the editing suite the other day fulfills my vision of what it was intended to convey to the audience."
