This marvellously lurid 250pp tome turned up in the post today, something I was looking forward to seeing as I wrote 30 of the reviews within, as well as some longer essays on Dracula, Lovecraft and a brief history of occult cinema. Nice layout, lots of colour and some great photos, many of which I haven’t seen elsewhere which isn’t always the case with books like this; I’ll enjoy reading the rest of it. Not sure when it’s due for publication just yet as Andre Deutsch/Carlton Books’ web presence is sketchy to say the least.
Update: The book was published on October 2nd, 2006.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The music of The Wicker Man
• Nosferatu
• David Rudkin on Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr
Nice cover.
Who did the entry for the Wicker Man?
I’ve just read the Quest for the Wicker Man and bought the 3oth anniversary 2 disc DVD version of it.
http://www.luath.co.uk/thewickerman/
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Reviews/Reviews.asp?ID=3349
Somehow I don’t think it would have turned out quite the same had Michael York or David Hemmings gotten the part that went to Edward Woodward. Interesting that it was released at the same time as Don’t Look Now as a double bill as the studio was taken over and the new management tried to disown films made before they took over by releasing them with limited fanfare and hoping they would fail.
There’s a couple of good chapters about the music of the film in the book.
Kerri Sharp did the entry for The Wicker Man. I’ve read before about the double-bill with Don’t Look Now; that would have been quite an evening.
In an interview on DVD Christopher Lee says that he did the part for no pay because there are some things you do just because you love the work and it had such a small budget that taking his usual fee would have made it much too expensive. Luckily Peter Cushing wasn’t availabe to play the part of the policeman either as they were trying to make an antithesis of all the Hammer horrors Lee had worked.
Lee and the director Robin Hardy are now working on a film entitled Cowboys for Christ as a sort of sequel to Wicker Man which should be more interesting than the remake Nicholas Cage is trying to do.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0323808/
The novel has already been published.
http://www.luath.co.uk/acatalog/Cowboys_for_Christ.html
Yes, I’m aware of Robin Hardy’s new project. I’m rather sceptical about it simply because he isn’t a very good director; The Wicker Man is a great film for its story, performances and music but the direction is pedestrian at best.