Director: Mel Stuart
Producers: Stan Margulies, David L. Wolper (Wolper Pictures, Warner Bros., Quaker Oates)
Writers: Roald Dahl (novel), Roald Dahl and Peter Seltzer (screenplay)
Photography: Arthur Ibbetson
Music: Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley
Cast: Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Peter Ostrum, Roy Kinnear, Julie Dawn Cole, Leonard Stone, Denise Nickerson, Nora Denney, Paris Themmen, Ursula Reit, Michael Bollner, Diane Sowle, Aubrey Woods
“If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.”
With such a fantastical promise, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory remains second only to The Wizard of Oz (1939) in a movie’s ability to capture a world of “puuure imagi-na-tion.” In fact, the film turns several Oz elements on their head, from a door opening to a mystical land of color (the all-edible chocolate room) to the introduction of singing little people (green-haired, orange-faced Oompa Loompas). But the most important similarity is its ability to capture the imaginations of children and adults alike, inspiring generations to think back fondly on the film all these years later, reminded of its impact each time they grab a Wonka Bar or Everlasting Gobstoppers at the grocery store.
Based on the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory began when director Mel Stuart’s daughter came to him in love with the novel, prompting Stuart to read the book and pitch the project to producer David L. Wolper. When Wolper got word that his TV sponsor Quaker Oates was exploring the release of a new candy bar, he was able to talk the oatmeal company into a joint promotion with his new movie, giving birth to the Wonka Bar in stores and earning $3 million from Quaker Oatesto fund his future movie classic.
Shot in Munich, Germany but resembling no particular time or place, the film centers around a young paperboy named Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), who lives with his widowed mother and four bedridden grandparents in such impoverished conditions that they eat a steady diet of cabbage water. His only escape is to stay up late and talk with his Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) about the legend that surrounds the town’s mysterious chocolate factory, world-renowned for its delicious delectables while carrying the reputation of “nobody ever goes in, nobody ever comes out.”
It’s this factory that takes Charlie, and the world, by storm when famous choclate maker Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) announces the release of five golden tickets in the wrappers of select Wonka bars, vouchers for a one-time-only tour of the facility (with one adult chaparone) and a lifetime supply of sweets. As one might guess, Charlie soon discovers he’s one of the lucky five and selects his Grandpa Joe to join him on his tour through Wonka’s fun-house of a factory.
The factory epitomizes the word “fantasy,” bursting with creative set pieces and colorful visuals providing “little surprises around every corner.” Nifty coatracks, trick elevators, opitical illusion hallways and a central chocolate room complete with marshmallow mushrooms, gummy bear trees and a flowing chocolate river, churned by an equally rich chocolate waterfall.
If the production design is wondrous, the visual effects keep in step, be it Charlie and Grandpa Joe becoming weightless in a bubble room, one of the kids swelling into a human blueberry, another kid vaporized into tiny particles and a careful split-screen trick shot to portray the magic of the “Hsaw Alknow” gadget (“Wonka Wash” spelt backward). But of all the factory’s eccentricities, none is more eccentric than Mr. Wonka himself.
Easily the most compelling role in the film — dubiously imitated by Johnny Depp in Tim Burton’s 2005 remake — Wilder invents a complex character out of the simplicty of a factory tour guide. For a man who appeared in such acclaimed films as The Producers (1968), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974), it may seem a stretch to call Willy Wonka a career role for Wilder. But considering the film’s continued appeal, especially for kids who will forever associate Wilder with that role, the claim is really no stretch at all.
Just watch every nuance Wilder makes in his purple jacket and orange top hat, the swinging of his cane to block movements of his tourists, the reverse steps as he descends a staircase, the smartass comments he makes to parents (“With your boyancy, sir, rest assured”); the monotone, sarcastic warnings each time a child misbehaves (“Stop, don’t”); and the signature line: “You get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!”
One of his most memorable moments was Wilder’s own idea: his first appearance, staggering out of the factory with a cane before pulling a somersault. Though not in the original script, Wilder felt the trick would set the tone for the rest of the film, with audiences unable to decide whether or not Wonka is ribbing them. (A) This is Wilder’s true strength throughout, an ambiguous appeal, part lovable, part cunning, even part nightmarish.
Ask anyone of their scariest memories of childhood movies and they may likely point to two sequences — the “Pink Elephants on Parade” number in Dumbo (1941) and the acid-trip chocolate river boat ride in Willy Wonka, a collage of flashing lights, disturbing images and Wonka’s creepy rhyme scheme: “There’s no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going. There’s no knowing where we’re rowing, or which way the river’s flowing. Is it raining, is it snowing, is a hurricane a blowing?” Voted one of the scariest scenes by BRAVO, this 1971 scene seems like something out of the acid movies of the late ’60s, not a children’s movie. But it’s consistent with the factory’s uneasiness throughout, employing a probing, mischievous xylophone to accompany the factory’s many dangers.
These dangers, of course, can be avoided if the characters just stick to Wonka’s rules, most practically not to touch anything, but more broadly to demonstrate the general moral codes of honesty and humility. For such a quirky, even hallucinatory film, Willy Wonka features some of the most direct moral messages of any children’s movie. Just compare the quiet, humble Charlie with his fellow golden-ticket holders: the gluttonous Augustus Gloop (Michael Bollner), the spoiled rotten Veruca Salt (Julie Dawn Cole), the greedy, gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson), and the lazy couch potato Mike Teevee (Paris Themmen). Each is ultimately undone by his or her own vice, articulated in song by the Oompa Loompas, asking, “What do you get when you guzzle down sweets?” and promising, “If you’re not greedy, you will go far.”
It’s the Oompa Loompa songs, four in total, that have carved the biggest place in movie pop culture, their sequences shot from different angles with sing-along text superimposed over the little men’s bobbing dance moves. But while tempting to remember only the Oompa Loompa numbers, one mustn’t forget the rest of the Oscar-nominated music from Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley and Walter Scharf –the bubbly “The Candy Man” sung by Aubrey Woods; the concillatory “Cheer Up, Charlie,” sung by Diane Sowle, the peppy “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket” by Ostrum and Albertson; the greedy “I Want It Now!” by Cole; and, most magically, “Pure Imagination,” sung with wonderous eyes by Wilder himself. Its this music that really strings together the film, tying together its themes of morality, childlike wonder, infinite creativity and the triumph of imagination. As Wonka himself says, “We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
Citations:
CITE A: DVD Documentary
