'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' - Fifty Years

Although the fiftieth anniversary of this landmark children's film was in June of this year, I bring up Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory today mainly because it's associated with the holidays, seeing as it has to do with candy and all that.  Also, I remember when it was on TV every Thanksgiving weekend. 

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory should not have worked.  Its differences from Roald Dahl's 1964 children's novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" go beyond just the title.  In the movie, several characters from the book are either eliminated or diminished.   The hero of  the story, Charlie Bucket, joins four rotten children to tour Mr. Wonka's factory and disobeys one of Mr. Wonka's orders in the movie, just as the other kids do, though he does not do so in the book.  The fifth of five Golden Tickets hidden in Wonka chocolate bars - the pass needed for the factory tour - is claimed to be found in Paraguay only to turn out to be a fake, another change from the book.  And there are other changes that would take too long to document, not the least of which is the fact that the movie is a musical, chock full of Anthony Newley songs (including "The Candy Man," which Sammy Davis, Jr. would have a surprise hit with in 1972).  Roald Dahl himself disavowed the movie after it came out.  So why does the movie work?

The answer is simple: Gene Wilder.

Wilder played Willy Wonka with a sense of whimsy and silliness that took a character in Dahl's 1964 book that always seemed a bit creepy and nonchalant despite being well-meaning and made him likeable and enjoyable.  Wonka was still standoffish and smug, but Wilder brought a method to Wonka's madness, as - we all know this by now, so I'm not spoiling the ending for you - the purpose of the Golden Tickets is to find the ideal child he can give his factory to when he retires.   Wonka constantly tests the five children in his care as they tour the factory, exposing them to tempting situations where the kids can either do the right thing or overindulge and get themselves into irrevocable trouble.  (He also gets someone to pretend to be his competitor in the candy business to bribe them to give him Wonka's latest candy innovation, an everlasting gobstopper, though that was not a plotline in the book.)  Wilder's Wonka strikes the right balance between being a daffy old creep and kindly old gent.  As anyone who had seen Wilder as Leo Bloom in The Producers will tell you, he knew how to play a character at both ends of the spectrum for comedic effect. 

The sets were pure early-seventies kitsch, from the Chocolate Room with its chocolate river to its Wonkavision TV studio, which provides a form of nostalgia for those of us who grew up with the Carpenters on the radio and the Banana Splits on TV.   (Wonka's outfit even screams 1971.) The scenes of adults doing anything to get a Golden Ticket, including using a computer that can locate the Golden Tickets ("It says, 'I won't tell, that would be cheating!'") are also enjoyable, showing how the promise of getting something for nothing (the Golden Tickets also include a lifetime's supply of chocolate) brings out the greed in even the most mature and sensible grownups.  The whole movie is full of such colorful scenes and clever ideas, so much that you almost forget the inconsistencies - an American family (the Buckets) living in the ghetto of a German city (it was filmed in Munich) where Charlie's schoolteacher is English (though the cluelessness of Charlie's teacher teaching science and percentages seems almost French New Wave).  Almost.  The movie is only okay until Wilder steps in.  Then it becomes magnificent.

I also have to give credit to Jack Albertson for his sprightly and warm portrayal as Charlie's' Grandpa Joe, as well as Roy Kinnear as spoiled-brat Veruca Salt's hapless father.  I can't forget the Oompa-Loompas either, singing about the nasty children just as they did in the book.  But of course, the movie is called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for a reason.  Though the film was not initially a success, its constant annual holiday airings throughout the 1970s on NBC (a network that, perhaps coincidentally, aired "Chico and the Man," starring Jack Albertson) made it a perennial favorite among Generation Xers like myself, despite the deviations from the book (which I read as a kid).  Because the movie looks great, the story is still great, the moral is timeless (be a good boy or girl and you'll be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams; misbehave you'll get your just deserts), and Gene Wilder is Willy Wonka.  Yes, I saw the 2005 movie version of the story, correctly titled after the book, and Johnny Depp makes a great Willy Wonka too.  And, that movie is superb in its own right because it's more true to Dahl's original story. But for my generation, Gene Wilder will always be Willy Wonka.

And don't forget what happened the man who suddenly  got everything he wanted . . . he lived happily ever after. 😊