On the surface, a movie like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a generic kids’ movie with all the singing and dancing that was common at the time. Musicals were all the rage even though movies were going through a huge change with the end of the Hays Code and the rise of the New Hollywood movement.
But underneath, it’s a dark horror fable about disobedient children and their enabling parents. Yet, we don’t find this out until the movie’s second half. The structure of the movie is so strange that I’m sure it surprised some audiences. But I’m certain it was what led to the movie’s poor box office performance. Ironically, the makers behind the movie were more interested in making cabbage in a different way.
The Quaker Oats Company had purchased the rights to the book as they were going to produce a new line of candy bars. And they anticipated the movie would be a good commercial for the product. Filming commenced in the Munich area and at Bavaria Studios, even though Roald Dahl’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is set in England. With a mixture of American and European actors, it gives the movie a universal feel which was the intention of director Mel Stuart.
Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) is a lonely young teen whose mother (Diana Sowle) makes a living doing laundry and Charlie has taken up a paper route to help out. His grandparents are still living even though his father is gone. (In the book, the dad is alive and works at a toothpaste factory.) The grandparents are bedridden including Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) who sounds like a crotchety old man from New England. The rest of the grandparents are given little to nothing to do but react before they like Charlie’s mother disappear from the rest of the movie.
In their town is the Wonka Factory that has been in operation but according to Joe, Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) had fired all of the staff and closed it down at one time when spies revealed his secrets to competitors. Some time passed and the factory has been operational since. But there is an air of mystery because as one local recalls, “No one ever goes in; no one ever comes out.”
Then, one day, the announcement is made that Wonka has hidden Golden Tickets in five random bars. The tickets will grant the holder a day-tour of the factory and a lifetime supply of chocolate. Media hysteria spreads across the globe as people buy in bulk. That is except for Charlie who doesn’t have the money, even though he gets one for his birthday and Grandpa Joe gets him another one. (Yet, since he’s bedridden, Charlie’s mother had to buy it.) He doesn’t win yet and becomes depressed because it’s another thing he’s unable that his peers can. Charlie gets embarrassed in school when it’s revealed he only open two Willy Wonka products.
Around the globe, other kids win. First is Augustus Gloop (Michael Bollner), an obese young teen in Dusseldorf, Germany. Next is Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson), an obnoxious, self-centered rude young girl from Montana who’s father, Sam (Leonard Stone), takes the newscast as an opportunity to advertise his car dealership.
Then, there’s the spoiled-rotten Veruca Salt (Julia Dawn Cole), from England, who’s been constantly pampered by her cowardly father, Henry (Roy Kinnear). He’s forced his workers to open up the candy bars to make Veruca happy. But she’s upset she didn’t win on the first day and feels the workers at his nut factory are jealous of her. The fourth recipient is a lazy 9-year-old Mike Teevee, who constantly watches TV and romanticizes westerns and violence. His mother (Dodo Denney) has always allowed him to watch TV even serving all his meals in the living room.
All of the children are visited by a mysterious man Mr. Slugworth (Gunter Meisner). A forgery leads to the contest being temporarily ended, Charlie finds some money in a storm drain on his way home from school and decides to indulge his sweet tooth at the nearby candy shop. He eats some candy then takes a bar for later. But when he hears about the forgery, he quickly opens it to see that he is the winner.
As he rushing home to tell his parents, he encounters Slugworth, who wants the children to find out about Wonka’s latest invention, the Everlasting Gobstopper. If they turn it over to him, he will give them money, money that he knows Charlie’s family will need. At home, he tells his family the news of the ticket and Charlie wants Grandpa Joe to go with him to the factory, which is surprisingly the next day. Good thing they sold all the bars with the Golden Tickets in them in time.
Yet when everyone sees Wonka for the first time, he appears with a cane and a limp. However, he does a roll to let them know he’s faking. But very soon, they learn there’s more to Wonka than just trying to make an entrance. The factory itself is like a madhouse with coat hangers built like hands that grab the clothing. The rooms have weird dimensions and it acts like a funhouse.
Then, there’s the Chocolate Room where they’re able to eat just about everything including the small teacups. But there also observe the Oompa-Loompa which are orange-skinned green-haired little people who perform all the work duties at the factory. While Wonka tries to defend himself as a white savior from the dangers of LoompaLand, he’s actually treating them as indentured servants.
At this point, Augustus decides to drink from the river of chocolate but falls in when Wonka sees and tries to stop him. Augustus gets sucked up in a pipe that goes to the fudge room. Even more disturbing at this scene is how Grandpa Joe watches with excitement like Wonka as the pressure shoots Augustus like a bullet into the Fudge Room.
Next comes the most oddest, totally out of left field scene where they all get on to a boat to cruise the river. (However, as many people have observed, there is just enough seating for four kids and their parents. Augustus and his mother were never intended to go on the boat.) The boat ride starts off beautiful but they go into a dark tunnel where psychedelic colors and images fly around. Even though the Oompa-Loompas are rowing, it doesn’t like like they’re moving at one point. We see images of a man with a snake crawling over his face, a chicken being decapitated and even Slugworth.
At this time, Wonka begins to sing and his song turns more demented only in a way Wilder can do. There’s definitely something off with Wonka and Wilder is having so much fun playing him as a mad person. This is a contrast with the opening as we see ASMR scenes of the candies and chocolates being made with nice playful soothing music by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Stuart’s two previous features had been comedies. So, it must’ve freaked audiences out in 1971 especially since they were expecting something like Oliver! or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Eventually, all the other kids suffer misfortunes. Violet turns into a giant blueberry when she chews gum that is being tested even though Wonka tells her she shouldn’t. Then, Charlie and Grandpa Joe drink Fizzy Lifting Drink and nearly find themselves being cut to pieces from the ceiling fans. However, they burp and it lowers them each time. Veruca, who has been acting snobbish though the whole tour, gets angry when Wonka want sell her one of the huge geese that lays golden chocolate eggs. She fails down the garbage shoot and Henry chases after her.
Another indication that Wonka had anticipated all this is when they talk a ride on the Wonkamobile, there’s only space for Chrarlie, Grandpa Joe, Mike and his mother. In many ways, this movie is a precursor to the movie Se7en where the children are punished along with their vices. However, the 2005 version directed by Tim Burton showed the children and their parents leaving the factory. This makes Wonka more of a supernatural being as he as the abilities to see the future. Or he’s designed the tour knowing where each child would have their weakness.
As many people have noted, Grandpa Joe is a very awful person. He refuses to get out of bed for 20 years to do work because the “floor’s too cold.” He smokes a pipe in front of everyone subjecting them to second-hand smoke. He even encourages thievery by not caring how Charlie got a loaf of bread, it’s just that he got it. Then he coaxes Charlie into drinking the Fizzy Lifting Drink, which nearly harms them.
And in the end as Charlie is the only one remaining, that action made the contract he signed at the beginning of the tour null and void. To be honest, who didn’t think that Grandpa Joe wouldn’t have sold the Gobstopper to Slugworth, who Wonka reveals is a decoy actually named Mr. Wilkinson that works for him. However, Charlie is the only decent character we see because even after he’s denied the chocolate, he still see that it’s wrong to cheat Wonka by selling to Slugworth.
Even though he might seem deranged, Wonka is like a demented version of Jiminy Cricket where he means to steer people to the right path from wrong. But as the old saying goes, “Sometimes you got to slap people in the face to get their attention.” There’s also been some theories that Bill (Aubrey Woods), the candy shop proprietor who sells Charlie the candy bar, also works with Wonka. Charlie passes by the Wonka Factory ever day on his paper route. Is it possible Wonka observed Charlie and decided to make the contest in hopes he’d be selected.
At the end, Wonka says that he put up a ruse to find an honest young child who can run his factory. And he is going to allow Charlie and his whole family to live there. So, why it’s a very complicated way to find the perfect benefactor, there’s no telling how much money Wonka made from the sales.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory wasn’t a huge success. It made only $4 million off a $3 million budget and got mixed reviews. However, it’s popularity grew with the home video and cable markets in the 1980s. However, Dahl hated the film adaptation as it focused too much on Wonka and not enough on Charlie. He also wanted Spike Milligan to play Wonka instead of Wilder.
However, despite the “saccharine” feel Dahl said the movie had, it was listed as No. 74 in a 2004 Bravo 100 Scariest Movie Moments with horror directors like Eli Roth and Stuart Gordon noting the twisted boat ride scene as the tonal shift of the movie into the more darker realm Dahl wanted.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 