Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Directed by Mel Stuart

Film Review

Roald Dahl's ever-popular 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is marvellously brought to life in this eccentric musical comedy, which has the dual purpose of educating parents on how to raise their offspring properly whilst making the little ones aware of the truly horrible things that will happen to them if they do not behave like good little boys and girls.  Dahl's penchant for dark humour is never more evident than in the grisly fate he reserves for the four Hellish brats in his story, and the most commendable things about Mel Stuart's film adaptation is that it does not play down the grisly black comedy - if anything, it seems to accentuate it.  What could so easily have been a painfully saccharine Hollywood musical ends up as something far more interesting and likeable.  Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory may have nothing like the glitzy production values of Tim Burton's lavish 2005 remake, but it has just as much charm and is much funnier, in a Harold Pinter sort of way.

Roald Dahl was originally hired to write the screenplay, but he was replaced by David Seltzer when he failed to meet his producer's deadlines.  Whilst the film is generally faithful to the original story, Dahl found plenty to dislike about it - he objected to the change in the title (which was done to tie in with a promotional deal with Quaker Oats to launch a new confectionary called the Wonka Bar); he took offence at the scene in which Charlie and his grandfather burp repeatedly to avoid being sucked into a ceiling fan; and he was none too impressed with the casting of Gene Wilder for the part of Wonka - he had wanted the comedian Spike Milligan to have the role.  Wilder was chosen only after several other actors (including Ron Moody and Jon Pertwee) had declined to star in the film.  Such was his dislike for the film that Dahl refused to sell the rights to his follow-up novel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.  The film may not have been to Roald Dahl's liking but it did his bank balance no end of good, giving a massive boost to the popularity of his children's novels in the 1980s when it made it onto television and home video.

Best known at the time for his starring role alongside Zero Mostel in Mel Brooks' risqué comedy The Producers (1968), Gene Wilder was quite a daring choice for the lead part of Willy Wonka.  Whilst Wilder doesn't appear totally comfortable in the role, he brings just the right mix of amiable showmanship, eccentricity and understated menace.  Peter Ostrum is a better choice for the part of Charlie Bucket - he makes the character sympathetic without making him appear wet or offensively angelic.  The four other child actors deserve credit for making their characters appear as ghastly as they do in the novel - it is a genuine delight watching them being picked off like victims in an Agatha Christie story, along with their equal vile parents.  The presence of popular comic actors Roy Kinnear and Tim Brooke-Taylor in the supporting cast provides the icing on the cake, although you can't help wondering how great (and mad) a film this might have been if Roald Dahl had got his way and Spike Milligan was allowed to lead the company.

As enjoyable as Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is, it does have one glaring deficiency: its musical numbers.  Cobbled together by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley (you'd think they did it for a bet), the film's songs are outstandingly dismal, with one notable exception: the wonderfully barmy Oompa Loompa song, a Eurovision-style oddity that will lodge itself in your head for weeks after you see the film (and may cause permanent brain damage).  The slightly nauseating opening number The Candy Man Can (sung by Aubrey Woods, who manages to look like a cross-between Mary Poppins and Norman Bates) became a chart-topping hit after the film's release when it was taken up by Sammy Davis, Jr.  Bizarrely, the film won an Oscar nomination for its music and songs - proof, if it be needed, that some people have absolutely no taste.  Which reminds me...

Oompa Loompa Doompadee Dah, If you're not greedy you will go far.  You will live in happiness too, Like the Oompa, Oompa Loompa doompadee do...

© James Travers 2012

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Film Synopsis

Willy Wonka, the most famous confectionary maker in the world, creates worldwide pandemonium when he announces that he will admit five lucky people to his ultra-secret chocolate factory.  Admittance will be by a special golden ticket, concealed in one of Wonka's chocolate bars. Charlie Bucket, a poor boy living with his widowed mother and four bedridden grandparents, dreams of finding one of the tickets, but the chances of him doing so are almost non-existent.  The small amount of money he earns as a paperboy he gives to his mother, who struggles to make ends meet.  The first four tickets are found and the lucky winners are revealed to be Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde and Mike Teevee, all spoiled brats who are used to getting what they want.  Charlie can hardly believe his good luck when he finds the fifth ticket, in a bar of chocolate purchased with a coin he found in the street.  Accompanied by his Grandpa Joe, Charlie is admitted to the Wonka factory with the other ticket finders by the great chocolate maker himself.  What lies inside the factory is a magical wonderland filled with fantastic equipment that is operated by Willy Wonka's midget workers, the orange-skinned Oompa-Loompas.  The gluttonous Augustus Gloop is drawn to a river of chocolate like a moth to a flame.  The others can only watch in horror as he falls in and ends up getting stuck in an extraction pipe.  Such is the fate of all bad little boys.  Before the visit is over, three more naughty children will meet a similarly sticky end...