Showing posts sorted by date for query WICKERMAN. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query WICKERMAN. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Sunday, May 05, 2024

Crowds gather to celebrate Beltain with burning of 40ft wicker man

Celtic Fire Festival: Burning the Wicker man took place at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire.

PENTACLE DRUMMERS PERFORMED DURING THE TRADITIONAL CELTIC FIRE FESTIVAL (ANDREW MATTHEWS/PA)

PA WIRE

Crowds gathered to mark the coming of summer with a traditional Celtic fire festival held at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire.

The experimental archaeology site in Waterlooville hosted the burning of a 40ft wicker man at dusk to mark the pagan quarter-day farming celebration of Beltane or Beltain, which has connections to later May Day celebrations

The May Queen and Green Man wre in attendance, as were members of the Pentacle Drummers who performed in front of the burning wicker man.




Tuesday, September 05, 2023

Revealed: How Britt Ekland was tricked over nude dancing scene

Dalya Alberge
Sat, 2 September 2023 

Britt Ekland starred in The Wicker Man (1973) with Edward Woodward - Alamy Stock Photo

When Britt Ekland agreed to star in what was to become a revered classic horror film, it was with the strict understanding that there would be no nude scenes. So, the Swedish starlet felt shocked and betrayed when a body double was brought in to play her character dancing naked in The Wicker Man.

Now, 50 years since the film’s release, the subterfuge producers used to deceive Ms. Ekland has been revealed. Directed by Robin Hardy from a script by Anthony Shaffer, based on David Pinner’s 1967 novel Ritual, The Wicker Man, also starring Christopher Lee, is the story of a puritan police sergeant who arrives on a remote Scottish island in search of a missing girl, only to encounter sinister pagan locals who deny that she ever existed.


Christopher Lee in the iconic film - Rex Features

Ms. Ekland was cast as Willow MacGregor, an innkeeper’s sexually-liberated daughter, who seduces the God-fearing policeman, played by Edward Woodward. In a new book about the making of the film, she has relived the horror of discovering that, without her consent, the film-makers brought in a stripper as her body double for the nude scene - despite an agreement that she would only be shown from the waist up. She said, “During the shoot, I had two days off, and that’s when they shot some of my scenes with a Glaswegian stripper.”

Mr. Walsh discovered that she had been the victim of “subterfuge” in the way that that scene was filmed. First assistant director Jake Wright recalls: “We filmed the dance sequence with Britt Ekland stripped to the waist singing and dancing. When it was finished, we said, ‘thank you very much, that’s enough for tonight.’

“She went downstairs and got into her limousine - and there was another limousine drawn up behind hers… The body double was lying flat on the floor so Britt Ekland couldn’t see her. As Britt had gone, up came the body double and we went on doing the other bits of the full nude scene.”

Ms. Ekland was distraught: “They just stuck a blonde wig on the body double. I couldn’t believe it because Robin promised that he wouldn’t do that. And the model’s body looked nothing like mine… I was just devastated.”

Britt Ekland was shocked by the producers' subterfuge - Mary Evans/Alamy

It has been reported that her then-boyfriend, rock star Rod Stewart, tried to buy the film to stop the world from seeing his then-girlfriend dancing nude in a provocative pagan scene. But Ms. Ekland says, “It’s so preposterous to even put such a thought out. Why on earth would [he] want to do that? I read about that all the time, and it just makes me laugh because it’s so far from the truth. I doubt that he even ever saw the film. There are so many rumors about this film… This, I can definitely confirm. It never ever, ever happened.”

The shoot took place in Dumfries and Galloway, which she described as “one of the bleakest places I’ve been to in my life”. While she had turned up in a sable coat and Gucci luggage, the epitome of the glamorous film star, it was so cold that, between shots, long-johns had to be worn. She added, “It wasn’t that usual a role for me. But I was cast as a beautiful girl, as I was in those days.”

Her recollections will feature in a forthcoming definitive book by John Walsh, titled The Wicker Man: The Official Story of the Film, to be published by Titan Books on October 24.


The 1973 chiller is being released by StudioCanal in a new 4K restoration on September 25. Mr. Walsh, an award-winning filmmaker, said that The Wicker Man was a failure on release but is today considered “The Citizen Kane of horror films”.



Monday, June 19, 2023

Britt Ekland says Bond girls have better time on set following #MeToo movement


Ellie Iorizzo, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter
Sun, June 18, 2023

James Bond star Britt Ekland said it was “tough” working in the film industry as a woman in the early ’70s before intimacy coaches were introduced on set and the #MeToo movement.

But the 80-year-old actress, who starred as Mary Goodnight opposite Sir Roger Moore in 1974’s The Man With The Golden Gun, said today’s Bond girls do not have as much fun in a world of political correctness.

She told the PA news agency: “There are no more Bond girls, they are Bond women today. They have it with the political correctness and the #MeToo, they have a much better time than we had.

“But I don’t think that the end product is as fun as ours were, because we were pretty and we had good bodies and we didn’t try to look sexy, we just were.

Actress Britt Ekland starred alongside Sir Roger Moore in The Man With The Golden Gun (PA)

“Today, everything is so, ‘Don’t do that because that will upset that side’. We didn’t have any of that.

“We just went out there, we were always in a bikini and all these people are fully dressed, very typical, but it was a job and we did it.

“So I think today the Bond women have it – from a political correctness point of view – in a much better position. But I think we had more fun.”

Ekland, who was speaking around the 50th anniversary of her and the late Christopher Lee’s film The Wicker Man, recalled filming scenes for the horror in Scotland – where she discovered she was pregnant with her second child.

She said: “It was very tough. This was the early ’70s and we didn’t have the kind of facilities that we have today, catering and people taking care of you.

“We certainly didn’t have what they have today, at least in America, an intimacy coach, and that is someone who I think is in the room when you do scenes of a sexual nature.


Ekland with Christopher Lee (PA)

“We had nothing, we just had to make do and it was not filmed in a studio, it was filmed in actual rooms and buildings. There were no regulations in those days.

“That’s why the #MeToo movement took everyone by such a surprise… this has been going on since a long time.

“Maybe today it’s over regulated, I don’t know because I haven’t done a movie for a long time. But it was tough.”

When asked about the changes in Hollywood following the #MeToo movement, Ekland clarified: “Put it this way, it has changed a little bit but not that much.”

Ekland reminisced about filming The Man With The Golden Gun, becoming “great friends” with Maud Adams, who played Andrea Anders, Bond filmmaker Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, as well as Bond himself, Sir Roger.

“He was a fabulous person. He was a real people person and I’m a people person,” she said.


Ekland on the bonnet of an original Aston Martin DB5, an iconic Bond car (PA)

“All of us got along really well. Cubby Broccoli was very friendly and funny and insisted that we all had to have a meal together – spaghetti, Italian meal every weekend.

“He invited the cast and the crew and he wanted me to eat a lot because he felt that I was a little bit too thin. Of course he had seen The Wicker Man and he’d say, ‘Oh, nice boobies, we’ll take her’, and then I arrive on set with the baby and no boobies so he said, ‘You’ve got to eat more’.

“I’m trying to not eat because I had to be in a bikini all the time so we were two forces.”

Ekland – who also appeared in British films Get Carter alongside Sir Michael Caine in 1971 and Scandal with Sir John Hurt in 1989 – admitted she has avoided watching her own films.

“I never really saw my films. I was too shy. I thought it was too scary,” she said.


Ekland attending the 50th anniversary celebration for The Wicker Man at the Picturehouse Central Cinema in London (PA)


“Even today I don’t think I would want to watch my movies. It’s just the way I am. Anyone that has to look at themselves larger than my normal self on a big screen like that, it’s very terrifying, kind of emotionally I don’t want to see that and you feel embarrassed.

“I’m a perfectionist. I could just pick myself apart so that’s why I don’t.”

The Wicker Man 50th Anniversary restoration will be in cinemas on June 21.

"I MAY BE A HEATHEN BUT NOT AN UNENLIGHTED ONE " 
CHRISTOPHER LEE

THE WICKERMAN IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE FILMS

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Whitman Wicker Man

The Wicker Man, a rather offbeat horror film from 1973, featured a unusual and generally excellent collection of folk songs by composer Paul Giovanni. Read more about the songs here.


The Wickerman is one of my favorite movies if you hadn't figured that out. Since I quote Christopher Lee, Lord Summerisle in my profile; " I am a heathen but not an unenlightened one"

The original not the crappy remake.

I’d look more kindly on Neil LaBute’s profoundly silly movie -- his first foray into anything like big-budget filmmaking geared toward a mainstream audience -- if I thought he meant any of it in jest, if any of it were winking at us even a littleNot so funny about Wicker Man is the truly awful and horrendously self-conscious performances he gets out of a truly fine cast. Cage, usually completely at home with a working-class guy like Edward, is just dreadful, and the women fare even worse.


Movie veteran CHRISTOPHER LEE has branded the upcoming Hollywood remake of THE WICKER MAN as "desperate". Lee, 84, starred in the original cult movie in 1973, which, he warns, is a hard act to follow. He describes NICOLAS CAGE's new effort as "desperate". Lee laments, "I would not embark on this when it was so successful the first time."


I watch the original during Easter as a counter to all the sword and sandal biblical stuff on TV. After all it is a film about sacrifice and resurrection.

When Lord Summer Isle takes young Ash Buchanan to be initiated into manhood by the Landlords Daughter; Willow, he quotes Walt Whitman. I have always liked this particular quote, and glad to have found it's source.
32

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain'd,

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.


Walt Whitman from Song of Myself


EXCLUSIVE TRACK
willows song instrumental



Poor Sgt. Howie, he is a fool, a king for a day, and about to be sacrificed as such. He had many an opportunity to take solace with the Landlords daughter but unlike Ash Buchanan he remains a virgin, it is after all his "duty to god."

It turns out that Howie is the virgin sacrifice the islanders have been wanting, all this time, and everyone, even the girl, has been playing a massive game to coax the priggishly upright man to don the proper mantle (of a fool) and participate in the May Day rituals (even in disguise), all to willingly present himself at the scene of his own sacrifice in the titular device, an enormous wooden effigy of a man which will be set afire with him in it.

Again, this is the sort of thing that any other movie would use as the final twist, and the metaphoric curtain would ring down. Not so in The Wicker Man, where the movie seems to go on a good twenty minutes or so as Howie is loaded into the Wicker Man and turns into a screaming biblical prophet, finally finding what comfort he can in his religion, a comfort he unwittingly denied himself in life - all while the people of Summerisle sing a jaunty tune.

Sgt. Howie's cry of Oh Jesus! Oh Lord! when he is about to burn with the other sacrifices in the Wicker Man is one of the stunning scenes in horror film. That it is followed by singing and dancing, reverencing the sacrifice truly captures that old tyme religion.

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See:

The Problem Is Pagans

Wicca

Pagan


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Thursday, January 25, 2007

Happy Burns Day


Radical Robbie Burns, Peoples Poet

A'hae toast ya laddie with a wee dram.

And one of my favorite of his poems; which was used in the original Wickerman.





The Rigs O' Barley
1783
Type: Song
Tune: Corn Rigs are bonie.


It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie;
The time flew by, wi' tentless heed,
Till, 'tween the late and early,
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed
To see me thro' the barley.

Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi' Annie.

The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down, wi' right good will,
Amang the rigs o' barley:
I ken't her heart was a' my ain;
I lov'd her most sincerely;

I kiss'd her owre and owre again,
Amang the rigs o' barley.
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs, &c.

I lock'd her in my fond embrace;
Her heart was beating rarely:
My blessings on that happy place,
Amang the rigs o' barley!
But by the moon and stars so bright,
That shone that hour so clearly!
She aye shall bless that happy night
Amang the rigs o' barley.
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs, &c.

I hae been blythe wi' comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinking;
I hae been joyfu' gath'rin gear;
I hae been happy thinking:
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,
Tho' three times doubl'd fairly,
That happy night was worth them a',
Amang the rigs o' barley.
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs, &c.



Burns is very much embraced by the men of the establishment and the movers and shakers in the communtiy. With their expensive and exclusive Burns night celebrations, one can be forgiven for thinking that Burns was one of them. Which he was not. A rebel he was and he remains.

No Churchman Am I
1782
Type: Song
Tune: Prepare, my dear Brethren, to the tavern let's fly.


No churchman am I for to rail and to write,
No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight,
No sly man of business contriving a snare,
For a big-belly'd bottle's the whole of my care.

The peer I don't envy, I give him his bow;
I scorn not the peasant, though ever so low;
But a club of good fellows, like those that are here,
And a bottle like this, are my glory and care.

Here passes the squire on his brother-his horse;
There centum per centum, the cit with his purse;
But see you the Crown how it waves in the air?
There a big-belly'd bottle still eases my care.

The wife of my bosom, alas! she did die;
for sweet consolation to church I did fly;
I found that old Solomon proved it fair,
That a big-belly'd bottle's a cure for all care.

I once was persuaded a venture to make;
A letter inform'd me that all was to wreck;
But the pursy old landlord just waddl'd upstairs,
With a glorious bottle that ended my cares.

"Life's cares they are comforts"-a maxim laid down
By the Bard, what d'ye call him, that wore the black gown;
And faith I agree with th' old prig to a hair,
For a big-belly'd bottle's a heav'n of a care.

And speaking of drinking he wrote this pagan paen of John Barleycorn, the sacrificial god of the fields, which became a big hit for the band Traffic as well.

John Barleycorn: A Ballad
1782
Type: Poem


There was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.

They took a plough and plough'd him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.

But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,
And show'rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris'd them all.

The sultry suns of Summer came,
And he grew thick and strong;
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.

The sober Autumn enter'd mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show'd he began to fail.

His colour sicken'd more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
To show their deadly rage.

They've taen a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then tied him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.

They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turned him o'er and o'er.

They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim;
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
There let him sink or swim.

They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him farther woe;
And still, as signs of life appear'd,
They toss'd him to and fro.

They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a miller us'd him worst of all,
For he crush'd him between two stones.

And they hae taen his very heart's blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.

John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.

'Twill make a man forget his woe;
'Twill heighten all his joy;
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.

Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland
And he was outspoken on the social issue of his day;

The Slave's Lament
1792
Type: Poem


It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthral,
For the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O:
Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more;
And alas! I am weary, weary O:
Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more;
And alas! I am weary, weary O.

All on that charming coast is no bitter snow and frost,
Like the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O:
There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,
And alas! I am weary, weary O:
There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,
And alas! I am weary, weary O:

The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear,
In the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O;
And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear,
And alas! I am weary, weary O:
And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear,
And alas! I am weary, weary O:






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Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Monday, April 03, 2006

The Many Faces of Solaris

Stanislaw Lem's most well known novel is Solaris (1961) because it has been the basis of several movies, not because a lot of people have read it.

There are of course the 'Solaris" movies one made in Russia in 1972 by Andre
Tarkovsky and the recent American remake in 2002. Lem has been critical of both. While Tarkovsky can be faulted by Lem he himself has been subjected to the Soviet Censors as Lem has.

Tarkovky's
earliest film Ivan Rublev has been yet to be released in its full form having suffered the worst excesses of American cut and paste editing as well as Soviet censorship. It is a tale not unlike that of the Wickerman.


But before these two versions of Solaris there were two B Grade movies that were based on Solaris or the theme of Solaris.

The first is
Journey to the Seventh Planet. Which was originally made in 1962 not 1959 as mistakenly listed here;

Journey To The Seventh Planet

Journey To The Seventh Planet

The Company Line

The United Nations sends a team to explore Uranus and they find a "small Danish village filled with voluptuous women!" Behind this set up though is a force that is using the memories of the crew against them so it can take over their ship and fly back to Earth.

1959, 77 minutes, Widescreen DVD



It is an Italian/American/Danish movie that I saw many times in my youth, usually on late night TV Sci Fi film fests. And I must admit a fondness for it.

It clearly was influenced by Lem's novel Solaris, and that maybe since the Writers and Producers are from Italy and Lems work was available in Europe before it was translated into English for UK and US distribution.

It starred B Actor John Agar. It also has a rather unique sound track. Very bubbly and hip sixties type music ahead of its time. You know that futuristic sound.....with crooning.

This cheapie came from low-budget producers/directors Ib Melchior and Sidney Pink who were between them responsible for films like The Angry Red Planet (1959), Reptilicus (1962), The Time Travelers (1964) and Death Race 2000 (1975). Pink and Melchior shot the film on the cheap in Sweden. And it certainly is cheap - the stop-motion animation for the one-eyed monster is atrocious, the actors don't even appear in the same shot as the giant creatures and the raygun beams have just been scratched onto the frame rather than animated.

But despite itself the film succeeds in transcending its limitations by creating an air of intriguing mystery. Some of the images at the opening of the film are quite striking - the apple which has rotted in one astronaut's hand after only a few minutes; the landscape that miraculously appears beyond the spaceship just before the astronauts look out; the great scene when commander Ottosen reminisces about his childhood while in the background behind him first the tree he talks about, then a windmill comes into being; the landscape that proves to be wholly surface in depth with trees that are found to have no roots. It does remind of the Ray Bradbury short story Mars is Heaven - and in turn looks forward to Solaris (1972) - but Pink does create a unique atmosphere of mystery and unease.

Directed by
Sidney W. Pink

Writing credits
Ib Melchior (screenplay)
Sidney W. Pink (story)


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Another Lem novelization that made it to film was First Space Ship on Venus a B Grade Sci-Fi movie from 1959. See Trailer here.

The trailer shows phenomenal special effects for the time. Interesting is that this movie has a Japanese cast while being a Polish East German Production.

Eight curious scientists in the far-future year 1985 try to find the source and meaning of a message disc from the planet Venus. Based on "The Astronauts" by the great Stanislaw Lem (SOLARIS), this SF curio also boasts a multinational cast, as well as beautiful photography and production design. Though Lem disowned the film, it stands on its own rather well and is probably one of the best SF films from the fifties.

I suspect that IB Melchior and Pink ,if they hadn't read Lem yet discovered him after they discovered this little gem. And you can download it for Free here.

And as usual Lem is critical of the Film version of his writing.

Still, the film is too ponderous and un-involving to stimulate the viewer's interest for long. Even the writer, Stainsaw Lem, author of such droll stuff as Solaris, has disowned it.

The image “http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00004W19F.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.First Spaceship on Venus (1959) (Der Schweigende Stern/Milczaca ...

East Germany/Poland. 1959.
Director - Kurt Maetzig, Screenplay - Maetzig, J. Barkhauer, Jan Fethke, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Stanislaw Lem, Gunther Reisch, Gunther Rucker & Alexander Stenbock-Fermor, Based on the Novel The Astronauts by Lem, US Version Produced by Edmund Goldman, Photography - Joachim Hasler, Music - Andrzej Markowski, Music (US Version) - Gordon Zahler, Special Effects - Helmut Grewald, Ernst & Vera Kuntsmann, Jan Olejarczak & Martin Sonnabend, Production Design - Alfred Hirschmeier & Anatol Radzinowicz. Production Company - Defa/Illuzjon Film Unit.
Cast:
Oldrich Lukas (Professor Harringway), Yoko Tani (Dr Sumiko Ogimura), Tang Hua-Ta (Dr Tchen Yu), Gunther Simon (Robert Brinkman), Michail N. Postnikow (Professor Durand), Kurt Rachelmann (Dr Sikarna), Ignacy Machowski (Professor Orloff), Julius Ogewe (Talua)

Plot: Scientists uncover a magnetic spool at the site of the Tunga explosion in Siberia. This is believed to have come from an exploding alien spacecraft. As all effort is made to decode the spool, it is discovered to have originated from Venus. The planned Mars rocket Cosmostrater 1 is hastily redirected towards Venus, along with a crew of top scientists. But once on Venus the Cosmostrater crew discover a world that has been devastated by atomic war and realize that the Venusians were planning to invade the Earth.


This East German-Polish co-production is a fascinating entry in the frenzy of movie making that greeted the Space Age. Amid the horde of American entries on the subject, this is an effort that quite intriguingly hails from the Communist Bloc



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