Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Directed by	Mel Stuart
Produced by	Stan Margulies; David L. Wolper
Starring	Gene Wilder; Jack Albertson; Peter Ostrum; Roy Kinnear; Denise Nickerson; Leonard Stone; Julie Dawn Cole; Paris Themmen; Dodo Denney
Music by	Leslie Bricusse; Anthony Newley
Cinematography	Arthur Ibbetson
Editing by	David Saxon
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release	June 30, 1971
Running time	100 minutes
Country	United States; United Kingdom; Germany
Language	English
Budget	$2.9 million
Gross revenue	$4 million

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 musical film adaptation of the 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, directed by Mel Stuart, and starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. The film tells the story of Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum, in his only film appearance) as he receives a golden ticket and visits Willy Wonka's chocolate factory with four other children from around the world.

Filming took place in Munich in 1970, and the film was released on June 30, 1971. It received positive reviews, but it was a box office disappointment. However, it developed into a cult film due to its repeated television airings and home video sales. In 1972, the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score, and Wilder was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, but lost both to Fiddler on the Roof.

Plot[]

After school, children go to a local candy shop, where the owner Bill serves chocolate to them. Charlie Bucket, saddened that he has no money, stares through the window as the owner sings "Candy Man". The newsagent Mr. Jopeck, for whom Charlie works after school, gives him his weekly pay, which Charlie uses to buy a loaf of bread. On his way, he passes legendary candy maker Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. A mysterious tinker recites the first lines of William Allingham's poem "The Fairies" and tells Charlie (referring to the factory) "Nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out". He brings the bread back to his widowed mother, Grandpa Joe, and his other three bedridden grandparents. That night, he tells Grandpa about the tinker and what he said, and Grandpa Joe tells him that Mr. Wonka once had to lock the factory because Mr. Slugworth (who is Wonka's main arch rival) and a few other candy company makers had sent spies disguised as Wonka's employees to get the secret recipes from Wonka. Wonka closed the factory and disappeared, but three years later went back into business and began selling more candies to candy stores all over the world. Despite this Wonka kept the factory locked to prevent Slugworth and the other companies from obtaining Wonka's secret recipes, so that just who is helping Wonka run the factory remains a big mystery.

One day, the family, along with the rest of the world, learns that Wonka has hidden five Golden Tickets in his Wonka Bars. The finders of these special tickets will be given a full tour of his factory, as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate to the "winner". Charlie wants to take part in the search, but can't afford to buy vast quantities of chocolate bars like other participants. Four of the tickets are found respectively in order by: Augustus Gloop, a gluttonous German boy; Veruca Salt, a spoiled English girl; Violet Beauregarde, a gum-chewing American girl; and Mike Teevee, a television-obsessed American boy. As they find their tickets, a sinister-looking man is observed whispering in their ears, to whom they listen attentively despite their preoccupations with their particular obsessions. Charlie's hopes are dashed when news breaks that the final ticket had been found by a Paraguayan millionaire.

The next day, as the Golden Ticket craze ends which the millionaire reveals as a fraud, Charlie finds some money in a gutter and uses it to buy a Wonka Bar. Since he still has some change left after eating the chocolate, he uses it to buy another Wonka bar, which he intends to bring home. On leaving the candy store, he learns from people talking that the ticket found by the millionaire was a forgery and that one ticket is still about somewhere. When Charlie opens the bar, he finds the real golden ticket and races home to tell his family, but is confronted by the same man who had been seen whispering to the other four winners. The man introduces himself as Slugworth, He offers to pay Charlie a large sum of money for a sample of Wonka's latest creation, the Everlasting Gobstopper.

Grandpa Joe practically leaps out of bed to serve as Charlie's tour chaperone and Charlie tells him about his meeting with Slugworth. The next day, Wonka greets the children and their guardians at the factory gates and leads them inside, requiring each to sign a contract before the tour can begin. Inside is a psychedelic wonderland full of chocolate river, giant edible mushrooms, lickable wallpaper, and other ingenious inventions and candies, as well as Wonka's workers, the small, orange-skinned, green-haired Oompa-Loompas.

As the tour progresses, Augustus ignores Wonka's warnings, resulting in him being sucked through a chocolate extraction pipe system and sent to the Fudge Room after falling into a chocolate river from which he was trying to drink; While in Wonka's Inventing Room, the remaining children are each given a sample of Wonka's Everlasting Gobstoppers, Violet inflates into a giant blueberry after trying an experimental piece of Three-Course-Dinner Gum. Veruca is rejected as a "bad egg" and falls down a garbage chute in the Chocolate Golden Egg Sorting Room; and Mike is shrunk to only a few inches in height after being transmitted by "Wonkavision", a broadcasting technology that can send objects through television instead of pictures. The Oompa-Loompas sing a song after each incident, describing that particular child's poor behavior.

During the tour, Charlie and Grandpa Joe also succumb to temptation: they stay behind in the Bubble Room and secretly sample Fizzy Lifting Drinks. They begin floating skyward and are nearly sucked into a ceiling-mounted exhaust fan. To avoid this grisly fate, they burp repeatedly until they return to the ground. Wonka initially seems unaware of this incident, but when Charlie becomes the last remaining child on the tour, Wonka dismisses him and Grandpa Joe and leaves for his office. Grandpa Joe follows Wonka to ask about Charlie's lifetime supply of chocolate. Wonka angrily reveals that Charlie has violated the contract by stealing Fizzy Lifting Drinks and therefore receives nothing. Wonka dismisses them. Grandpa Joe suggests that Charlie give Slugworth the gobstopper in revenge; however, Charlie places the gobstopper on Wonka's desk.

Wonka apologizes and reveals that "Slugworth" was an employee, named Mr. Wilkinson. The offer to buy the gobstopper was part of a morality test for the Golden Ticket winners, and Charlie was the only one who passed. The trio enter the "Wonkavator", a multi-dimensional glass elevator which flies out of the factory. As they soar over the city, Wonka tells Charlie that his prize isn't just the chocolate but the factory itself; the Golden Ticket search was created to help Wonka find an honest child worthy to be his heir. Charlie and his family will live in the factory, and take over its operation when Wonka retires.