Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 American musical fantasy film directed by Mel Stuart and starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. It is an adaptation of the 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. The film tells the story of a poor child named Charlie Bucket who, after finding a Golden Ticket in a chocolate bar, visits Willy Wonka's chocolate factory along with four other children from around the world.
Filming took place in Munich from August to November 1970. Dahl was credited with writing the film's screenplay; however, David Seltzer was brought in to do an uncredited rewrite. Against Dahl's wishes, changes were made to the story and other decisions made by the director led Dahl to disown the film. The musical numbers were written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley while Walter Scharf arranged and conducted the orchestral score.
The film was released by Paramount Pictures on June 30, 1971. With a budget of just $3 million, the film received generally positive reviews and earned $4 million by the end of its original run. In 1972, the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score, and Wilder was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. The film also introduced the song "The Candy Man", which went on to be recorded by Sammy Davis Jr. and become a popular hit. The film remained in obscurity until the 1980s where it gained a cult following and became highly popular due to repeated television airings and home video sales.
In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Another film adaptation was made in 2005 under the same title as the original book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with Johnny Depp portraying Willy Wonka.
Plot
Charlie Bucket is a poor paperboy who can only look inside a candy shop but never buy any sweets. Going home he passes Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, where a tinker tells him that nobody ever goes in or comes out. Charlie rushes home to his widowed mother and bedridden grandparents. That night, Charlie's Grandpa Joe reveals that Wonka had locked the factory up several years earlier because rival confectioners were sending in spies to steal his recipes. Wonka shut down the factory, but resumed production years later. The gates remained locked and the original workers never returned to their jobs, leaving everyone wondering who had replaced them.
Wonka announces globally that he has hidden five Golden Tickets in chocolate Wonka Bars. Finders of the tickets will receive a factory tour and a lifetime supply of chocolate. The first four tickets are found by a gluttonous German boy Augustus Gloop; the spoiled English girl Veruca Salt with a wealthy father; and from the United States, a constantly gum-chewing girl Violet Beauregarde, and the television-obsessed boy Mike Teevee. As each winner is announced on television, a sinister-looking man then appears and whispers to them.
A subsequent news report reveals the fifth ticket was found by a millionaire in Paraguay, causing Charlie to lose hope. The next day, Charlie is on his way home from school when he finds money in a gutter and uses it to buy and eat candy; with the change, he buys a regular Wonka Bar for Grandpa Joe. Walking home, Charlie overhears that the millionaire had forged the fifth ticket. Charlie then opens his Wonka Bar, discovering the final ticket. Rushing back, he encounters the same sinister-looking man seen whispering to each winner. He introduces himself as Slugworth and offers a reward for a sample of Wonka's latest creation, the Everlasting Gobstopper.
Returning home with the Golden Ticket, Charlie chooses Grandpa Joe as his chaperone, who excitedly jumps out of bed for the first time in twenty years. The next day, Wonka greets the ticket winners at the front gates of the factory and leads them inside, where each signs a contract before the tour. The factory includes the Chocolate Room, a candy land with a river of chocolate and other sweets. The visitors meet Wonka's workforce, little people known as Oompa-Loompas. During the tour, the individual character flaws of each child has them give in to temptation, resulting in their unusual elimination.
Augustus gets sucked up a pipe; Violet turns into a blueberry; Veruca falls down a chute; and Mike is shrunk very small. The Oompa Loompas sing a song of morality after each disposal. During the tour, Charlie and Joe enter the Fizzy Lifting Drinks room and sample the beverages against Wonka's orders. The drink makes them float up and have a near-fatal encounter with the ceiling exhaust fan, but burping allows them to escape and descend to the ground.
At the end of the tour, Charlie and Grandpa Joe, now the only remaining guests, ask about what will become of the other kids. Wonka assures them that they will be fine, before then hastily retreats to his office without awarding them the promised lifetime supply of chocolate. Grandpa Joe and Charlie enter his office to enquire, where Wonka angrily informs them that they had violated the contract when they stole the Fizzy Lifting Drinks, thereby forfeiting their prize.
Joe denounces Wonka and suggests to Charlie that he give Slugworth the Everlasting Gobstopper in retaliation, but Charlie decides to return the candy to Wonka instead. All of a sudden, Wonka joyously declares Charlie the winner, and reveals that Slugworth is actually his employee, Mr. Wilkinson. The offer to buy the Gobstopper was a morality test for the ticket winners, and only Charlie passed. The trio enter the Wonkavator, a multi-directional glass elevator, that flies out of the factory. During their flight, Wonka tells Charlie that he created the contest to find someone worthy enough to inherit his factory, so when he retires he will give it to Charlie and his family.
Production
Development
The idea for adapting the book into a film came about when director Mel Stuart's ten-year-old daughter read the book and asked her father to make a film out of it, with "Uncle Dave" (producer David L. Wolper, who was not related to the Stuarts) producing it. Stuart showed the book to Wolper, who happened to be in the midst of talks with the Quaker Oats Company regarding a vehicle to introduce a new candy bar from its Chicago-based Breaker Confections subsidiary (since renamed the Willy Wonka Candy Company and sold to Nestlé). Wolper persuaded the company, which had no previous experience in the film industry, to buy the rights to the book and finance the picture for the purpose of promoting a new Quaker Oats "Wonka Bar".
Wolper and Roald Dahl agreed that Dahl would also write the screenplay. Though credited for the film, Dahl had not delivered a completed screenplay at the start of production and only gave an outline pointing to sections of the book. Wolper called in David Seltzer for an uncredited rewrite after Dahl left due to creative differences. Wolper promised to produce Seltzer's next film for his lack of a credit as they needed to maintain credibility by keeping Dahl's name attached to the production. Also uncredited were several short humorous scenes by screenwriter Robert Kaufman about the Golden Ticket hysteria. Changes to the story included Wonka's character given more emphasis over Charlie; Slugworth, originally a minor character who was a Wonka industry rival in the book, was reworked into a spy so that the film could have a villain for intrigue; a belching scene was added with Grandpa and Charlie having "fizzy lifting drinks"; and the ending dialogue.
Wolper decided with Stuart that the film would be a musical and approached composers Richard Rodgers and Henry Mancini but both declined. Eventually they secured the songwriting team Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Seltzer created a recurring theme that had Wonka quote from various literary sources, such as Arthur O'Shaughnessy's Ode, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
There are different interpretations regarding the title change to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. In the United States during the 1960s, the term "Mister Charlie" had been used as a pejorative expression in the African-American community for a "white man in power" (historically plantation slave owners) and press reports claimed the change was due to "pressure from black groups". During the same period, US soldiers in the Vietnam War used the derisive term "Charlie" for the Viet Cong. The studio publicity stated that the title "was changed to put emphasis on the eccentric central character of Willy Wonka". However, Wolper said he changed the title to make the product placement for the Wonka Bar have a closer association. Stuart confirmed the matter was brought to his attention by some African-American actors and he also claimed to have changed the title saying, "If people say, 'I saw Willy Wonka,' people would know what they were talking about. If they say, 'I saw Charlie,' it doesn’t mean anything".
The book was also in the midst of a controversy when the film was announced. Protest groups including the NAACP had taken issue with the original Oompa-Loompas depicted as African pygmies and compared them to slavery. Stuart addressed the concerns for the film and suggested making them the distinctive green-and-orange characters.
Gene Wilder wanted specific changes to Wonka's costume, including what type of trousers the character should wear, "the colour and cut" of his jacket and the placement of pockets. Wilder's attention to detail also requested, "The hat is terrific, but making it 2 inches shorter would make it more special".
Casting
Before Wilder was officially cast as Willy Wonka, producers considered Fred Astaire, Joel Grey, Ron Moody, and Jon Pertwee. Spike Milligan was Roald Dahl's original choice. Peter Sellers reportedly begged Dahl for the role.
All six members of Monty Python (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin) expressed interest in playing Wonka, but at the time they were deemed not big enough names for an international audience.
Joel Grey was the front runner for the part but director Mel Stuart decided he wasn’t physically imposing enough as the actor's height was five-foot-five. The producers learned that Fred Astaire wanted the part, but the 72-year-old may have considered himself too old.
Actors were auditioned for the role of Willy Wonka in a suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York and by the end of the week Wilder had walked in. It was then Stuart and producer David L. Wolper realised that they could stop looking. Wolper remarked, "The role fit him tighter than one of Jacques Cousteau’s wetsuits." Stuart was captivated by Wilder's "humour in his eyes" and said, "His inflection was perfect. He had the sardonic, demonic edge that we were looking for." Wolper tried to suppress Stuart's eagerness for the actor as he wanted to negotiate the salary. Regardless, the director ran out into the hall as Wilder was leaving and offered him the part of Wonka.
When Wilder was cast as Wonka, he accepted the role on one condition: "When I make my first entrance, I'd like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I'm walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause." — Gene Wilder
Stuart responded, "What do you want to do that for?" Wilder answered, "From that time on, no one will know if I'm lying or telling the truth." Wilder was adamant that he would decline the role otherwise.
Jean Stapleton turned down the role of Mrs. Teevee. Jim Backus was considered for the role of Sam Beauregarde. Sammy Davis Jr. wanted to play Bill, the candy store owner, but Stuart did not like the idea because he felt that the presence of a big star in the candy store scene would break the reality; though Davis would make Bill's signature song, "The Candy Man", into a big hit. Anthony Newley also wanted to play Bill, but Stuart also dissuaded him for the same reason.
Ten actors of short stature were the Oompa Loompas, including one woman and nine men, and were cast internationally from France, Germany, Malta, Persia (now Iran), Turkey and the UK.
The child actors who were auditioned from hundreds, Julie Dawn Cole, Denise Nickerson, Peter Ostrum and Paris Themmen all had acting experience from stage school, theatre, television or commercials. Michael Böllner had the primary attribute of being rotund and was discovered in Germany when Stuart was location scouting. Stuart asked him to imagine being stuck in a tube and then "squeezed him like a roll of putty".
Filming
Principal photography commenced on August 31, 1970, and ended on November 19, 1970. The primary shooting location was Munich, Bavaria, West Germany, because it was significantly cheaper than filming in the United States and the setting was conducive to Wonka's factory; Stuart also liked the ambiguity and unfamiliarity of the location.
External shots of the factory were filmed at the gasworks of Stadtwerke München (Emmy-Noether-Straße 10); the entrance and side buildings still exist. The exterior of Charlie Bucket's house, a set constructed solely for the film, was filmed at Quellenstraße in Munich. Charlie's school was filmed at Katholisches Pfarramt St. Sylvester, Biedersteiner Straße 1 in Munich. Bill's Candy Shop was filmed at Lilienstraße, Munich. The closing sequence, in which the Wonkavator is flying above the factory, is footage of Nördlingen, Bavaria, and the elevator rising shot showing that it shoots out of the factory was from Bößeneckerstraße 4, 86720 Nördlingen, Germany, now the location of a CAP-Märkte.
After location scouting in Europe, including the Guinness brewery in Ireland and a real-life chocolate factory in Spain, production designer Harper Goff decided to house the factory sets and the massive Chocolate Room at Bavaria Studios.
The construction of the original Inventing Room was meant to be an industrial room with steel tubes. Stuart envisioned it differently as a wacky inventor's laboratory, with Rube Goldberg type mechanisms and unusual contraptions, and wanted it redesigned to be like Wonka's personality. Goff sent his construction crew into Munich searching junkyards, bakeries, and car dealers for discarded machinery, tin funnels, and any other raw materials. This included building Wonka's three-course gum machine, which was originally a solid state device, but Stuart requested an appliance where the operations had a visual experience for the audience. Stuart also instructed Goff to have all the props, furniture and fittings, excluding the light bulbs, in Wonka's original office to be cut in half, to reflect the character's eccentricity.
About a third of the props in the Chocolate Room set were edible. Veruca Salt had a chocolate watermelon; Mike Teevee had gum balls from a tree; Violet Beauregarde's "three-course gum" was actually a toffee-based candy, and marzipan was freely available on set; also there were giant mushrooms filled with whipped cream; and the trees had eatable leaves. The inedible items included giant gummy bears that were plastic (but you could eat the ear); the flavoured wallpaper was just wallpaper; and Wonka's flower cup was made of wax which Gene Wilder would chew on camera and spit out after each take.
According to Paris Themmen, who played Mike Teevee, "The river was made of water with food colouring. At one point, they poured some cocoa powder into it to try to thicken it but it didn't really work. When asked what the river was made of, Michael Böllner, who played Augustus Gloop, answers, 'It vas dirty, stinking vater.'" A combination of salt conditioner and some chemicals eventually removed the stink problem but it remained cold, dirty water.
Stuart had issues with the large size of the Chocolate Room set with difficulties lighting the background. Julie Dawn Cole's performance of "I Want It Now" as Veruca Salt required 36 takes and was filmed on her thirteenth birthday. Director Bob Fosse came in every afternoon to complain because the filming was overrunning towards the end and stopping him from shooting Cabaret on the same stage.
For the performances, Stuart used a recurring "method" tactic in a few scenes. When Wonka makes his entrance at the factory gates, nobody was aware of Wilder's approach as he limped then somersaulted; the reaction was of real surprise. The director gave explicit instructions not to allow the child actors to see the Chocolate Room set until the day of the shoot as he wanted their reactions to be genuine. The exception was Cole, as Goff gave her a sneak preview. Also the actors were not warned about the tunnel boat ride scene. Similarly, when Wilder rehearsed the Wonka office scene, with Peter Ostrum as Charlie and Jack Albertson as Grandpa Joe, it was in a much calmer tone. When filming started and he increasingly became angry eventually shouting, "So you get nothing!", it was so that the reactions would be authentic.
In addition to the main scenes set in town and at the factory, several comic interludes were also shot. Stuart lamented in his book Pure Imagination: The Making of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, that his favourite scene was cut due to poor test screenings. In the scene, which took a lot of preparation and money to film, an English explorer climbs a holy mountain to ask a guru the meaning of life. The guru requests a Wonka Bar. Finding no golden ticket, he says, "Life is a disappointment." Stuart loved the scene, but few laughed. He invited a psychologist friend to a preview, where again, the audience reaction was muted. The psychologist told him, "You don't understand, Mel. For a great many people, life is a disappointment."
When interviewed for the 30th anniversary special edition in 2001, Wilder stated that he enjoyed working with most of the child actors, but said that he and the film crew had some problems with Paris Themmen recalling, "Oh, he was a little brat!" He then addressed Themmen directly, "Now if you're watching this, you know that I love you now, but you were a troublemaker then." An example of Themmen's misbehaviour was releasing bees from a beehive on Wonka's three-course gum machine. "As life mirrored one of the morals of the movie," Stuart remembers, "one of the bees stung him."
Music
The original score and songs were composed by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, and musical direction was by Walter Scharf. The soundtrack was first released by Paramount Records in 1971.
Sammy Davis Jr. recorded the song "The Candy Man" which became his only number-one hit. It would spend three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart starting June 10, 1972, and two weeks at the top of the easy-listening chart.
On October 8, 1996, Hip-O Records (in conjunction with MCA Records, which by then owned the Paramount catalog), released the soundtrack on CD as a "25th Anniversary Edition". In 2016, UMe and Geffen Records released a 45th Anniversary Edition LP.
The music and songs, in order of appearance, are as follows:
"Main Title" – Instrumental medley of "(I've Got A) Golden Ticket" and "Pure Imagination"
"The Candy Man" – Aubrey Woods
"Cheer Up, Charlie" – Diana Lee (dubbing over Diana Sowle)
"(I've Got A) Golden Ticket" – Jack Albertson and Peter Ostrum
"Pure Imagination" – Gene Wilder
"Oompa Loompa (Augustus)" – The Oompa Loompas
"The Wondrous Boat Ride" / "The Rowing Song" – Gene Wilder
"Oompa Loompa (Violet)" – The Oompa Loompas
"I Want It Now" – Julie Dawn Cole
"Oompa Loompa (Veruca)" – The Oompa Loompas
"Ach, so fromm" (alternately titled "M'appari", from "Martha") – Gene Wilder
"Oompa Loompa (Mike)" – The Oompa Loompas
"End Credits" – "Pure Imagination"
{The best and most iconic song in this film is obviously 'Pure Imagination'}
{I'll be honest, the Oompa Loompa's songs are really forgettable. Don't get me wrong, they're iconic too. But it's just when you try and sing them you get all the lyrics muddled up and out of order. Unless you're a cult follower of the film though you probably wouldn't have that problem}
Release/Reception/Box Office
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory was released by Paramount Pictures on June 30, 1971. The film was not a big success, eventually earning $4 million worldwide on a budget of $3 million, and was the 24th highest-grossing film of the year in North America.
For the promotion before its release, the film received advance publicity through TV commercials offering a "Willy Wonka candy factory kit" for sending $1.00 and two seals from boxes of Quaker cereals such as King Vitaman, Life and any of the Cap'n Crunch brands.
The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect four out of four stars, calling it: "Probably the best film of its sort since The Wizard of Oz. It is everything that family movies usually claim to be, but aren't: Delightful, funny, scary, exciting, and, most of all, a genuine work of imagination. Willy Wonka is such a surely and wonderfully spun fantasy that it works on all kinds of minds, and it is fascinating because, like all classic fantasy, it is fascinated with itself."
Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times praised the film as "lively and enjoyable" and called Wilder's performance "a real star turn", but thought the songs were "instantly forgettable" and that the factory looked "a lot more literal and industrial and less empathic than it might have". Variety called the film "an okay family musical fantasy" that had "good" performances but lacked any tunes that were "especially rousing or memorable". Howard Thompson of The New York Times panned it as "tedious and stagy with little sparkle and precious little humour". Gene Siskel gave the film two stars out of four, writing, "Anticipation of what Wonka's factory is like is so well developed that its eventual appearance is a terrible let-down. Sure enough there is a chocolate river, but it looks too much like the Chicago River to be appealing. The quality of the colour photography is flat. The other items in Wonka's factory—bubble-gum trees and lollypop flowers—also look cheap. Nothing in the factory is appealing." Jan Dawson of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that after a slow start the second half of the film was "an unqualified delight—one of those rare, genuinely imaginative children's entertainments at which no adult need be embarrassed to be seen".
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 91% approval rating and an average rating of 7.80/10 based on 53 reviews. The site's critical consensus states: "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is strange yet comforting, full of narrative detours that don't always work but express the film's uniqueness."
Budget $3 million
Box office $4 million
{It's funny watching this in a loop; like did she really forget that it would fall in on itself? 🤣}
My Review
{You wanna know a really strange yet oddly interesting and cool fact; the tune to 'I've got a Golden Ticket' plays as you're going around the Alice In Wonderland ride in Blackpool Pleasure Beach}
They say that true love lasts a lifetime, so shall it be the case with Willy Wonka and myself. As a child I was captivated by the colours, the dream of myself being able to visit a magical place where sweets and chocolate roll off the production line purely for my ingestion. Songs that I memorised back in my youth have never left me, and now as a considerably middle aged adult male, I can still embrace, and feel the magic, whilst enjoying the darkly knowing aspects of this fabulous and wondrous black comedy.
Roald Dahl was quite a writer of note, and thankfully the makers here have brought his astute morality tale to vivid cinematic life. Director Mel Stuart, aided by his screenwriter David Seltzer, even manage to add to Dahl's wonderful story courtesy of a sinister outsider, who apparently in the guise of a rival corporation, will pay handsomely for a Wonka top secret, morality, greed and power all coming together in one big chocolate explosion. The greatest gift that Willy Wonka gives, tho, is that of the set designs and art direction, where in an almost hypnotically drug induced colourful world, Wonka's factory is a child's dream come true, however, peril is at every turn as life's lessons dolled out courtesy of the scarily cute Oompa Loompas.
Songs are provided by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricuse, with the sumptuous art coming from Harper Goff. Gene Wilder takes the lead role of Willy Wonka, magnetic and bordering on clued in madness, Wilder takes his rightful place in the pantheon of memorable performances performed in fantasy pictures. But ultimately it's the story and the way it appeals to every age group that makes Willy Wonka a prize treasure, the kids love it, while the adults watching with them will be wryly nodding and trying to suppress the onset of a devilish grin.
This is a hugely enjoyable film, based upon the book by Roald Dahl. The film does have a number of merits, especially the flawless performance of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, a characterisation that is charming and funny at the same time. Another standout is Jack Albertson as Grandpa Joe, his scenes with Charlie were lovingly realised, but in his song, he was just hilarious, and his singing voice was remarkably good. However, whereas Peter Ostrum is perfectly agreeable in terms of acting as Charlie, he is let down by his lack of any real singing ability. Though the film does look beautiful with excellent cinematography and colourful sets, and the supporting characters like the Oompa Loompas, the odiously spoilt Veruca Salt, television addict Mike Tevee and the rather disgusting Violet Bueragarde, are very well done, and the actors are further advantaged by a wonderful sparkling script. The songs are lovely, especially Oompa Loompa, Imagination and I want it Now, though I will say I felt Cheer Up Charlie was rather tedious and slowed the film down quite considerably. Overall, a beautiful film, and I do think it is underrated. {Plus, I kinda love how the kids literally die in this one. Seriously we never see them again like we did in the 2005 version, so it's safe to assume that they died; Willy Wonka wanted dead or alive for child endangerment!}. 8.6/10
{In recent years though, I've found and quite favour a cover of 'Pure Imagination' that Fiona Apple sings. Honestly, I kinda like it more than Gene Wilder's version (DON'T HATE ME). It just brings/gives it a creepy/gothic yet daydream vibe, that I honestly dig. If I were to have written the song, I imagine I'd have created it like this}
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