Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a musical film adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic book for children Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Financing for the film was originally provided by the Quaker Oats Company, which is listed as one of the copyright holders of the movie. The movie was distributed by Paramount Pictures, but it ended up with Warner Bros.. This happened probably because David Wolper was working with WB at the time.
The film stars Gene Wilder as the eccentric chocolate candy maker, Peter Ostrum as Charlie, and Jack Albertson as Grandpa Joe. Filming began in Munich, Germany, where both studio and location scenes were filmed, on August 31, 1970, and ended on November 19, 1970. The film was released in 1971.
Of a mere six songs in the film (although some were repeated a few times), the most well-received were The Candy Man (later a hit for Sammy Davis, Jr.) and The Oompa Loompa Song.
Dahl's screenplay follows his book's basic storyline fairly closely. Mel Stuart's direction however takes some parts of the movie in a slightly darker direction than the book. One sequence, the boat ride on the chocolate river, shows the obvious influence of psychedelia.
Other differences between the film and the book include:
- In the original book, the Oompa-Loompas are African pygmies that worked for cacao beans. Later versions, in response to allegories of slavery, turned Oompa-Loompas into red-haired, sparsely-clothed Caucasians. However, in the film they are portrayed as grotesque orange-skinned, green-haired creatures in overalls.
- The film expanded the role of Wonka's rival Slugworth, who tempts the children to give him the recipe for Wonka's Everlasting Gobstoppers. It turns out at the end that he is actually an employee of Wonka who participates in a test of character of the ticket holders, which Charlie Bucket passes with flying colours.
- The effect of Fizzy Lifting Drinks that are only described in the book are demonstrated by Charlie and Grandpa Joe in the movie.
- In the book, Veruca Salt, the spoiled brat, was thrown down a garbage chute by trained squirrels that could recognize a "bad nut", while the movie had her dropped down a garbage chute by an egg-testing machine that could recognize a "bad egg".
- After Willy Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe fly out of the factory in the great glass elevator, the book describes the fates of other four children as they leave the factory, followed by the elevator crashing through the roof of Charlie's house to pick up the rest of his family. These details are omitted in the film.
Roald Dahl disliked this film so much that he refused to sell the director legal rights to make Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.
In 1999, in the same spirit that discovered The Dark Side of the Rainbow (playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz), a similar strain of serendipity uncovered Willy Wonka's 2112—playing the epic Rush album 2112 beginning at a point near the entrance into the factory. Specific instructions and instances of synchronicity can be found online (http://home.i1.net/~bytor/willywonka2112.html).
A new adaptation of the book, titled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, will be released in 2005. Directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, it is not a remake of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
Trivia
- Amongst the film's notable cameos is Tim Brooke-Taylor as the Computer Operator.
- Diminutive actor Angelo Muscat, most well-known for playing the dwarf butler in the cult '60s TV show The Prisoner, can be spotted as an Oompa-Loompa.
Quotes
Throughout the film, Wonka quotes from various authors and poets: see the film's Wikiquote entry for a long list of quotations.