Film Charlie Amp; The Chocolate Factory
Arnau Cyr
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 American musical fantasy film directed by Mel Stuart from a screenplay by Roald Dahl, based on his 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It stars Gene Wilder as chocolatier Willy Wonka. The film tells the story of a poor child named Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) who, upon finding a Golden Ticket in a chocolate bar, wins the chance to visit Willy Wonka's chocolate factory along with four other children from around the world.
Filming took place in Munich from August to November 1970. Dahl was credited with writing the film's screenplay; however, David Seltzer was brought in to do an uncredited rewrite. Against Dahl's wishes, changes were made to the story, and other decisions made by the director led Dahl to disown the film. The musical numbers were written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley while Walter Scharf arranged and conducted the orchestral score.
Charlie Bucket is a poor paperboy who often looks inside a candy shop but cannot afford to buy sweets. Going home one evening, he passes confectioner Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, where a tinker tells him that no one ever enters or leaves the building. Charlie's bedridden Grandpa Joe reveals that Wonka had shut down the factory because rival confectioners sent spies to steal his recipes. Production resumed three years later, but the gates remained locked, and to prevent more sabotage, the original workers were not rehired, leaving their replacements a mystery.
Wonka announces that he has hidden five Golden Tickets in chocolate Wonka Bars. Finders of the tickets will receive a factory tour and a lifetime supply of chocolate. The first four tickets are found by Augustus Gloop, a gluttonous German boy; Veruca Salt, the spoiled daughter of wealthy English parents; and two Americans, Violet Beauregarde, who chews gum constantly, and Mike Teevee, who is obsessed with television. As each winner is announced on television, a sinister-looking man appears and whispers to them. Charlie also takes advantage of his birthday, and a gift from Grandpa Joe, to open two Wonka bars, hoping to find a ticket, but he does not find one in either of them.
A news report reveals the fifth ticket was found by a millionaire in Paraguay, causing Charlie to lose hope. The next day, Charlie is on his way home from school when he finds money in a gutter and uses it to buy a Wonka Bar for himself and Grandpa Joe. Walking home, Charlie overhears that the millionaire forged the fifth ticket. Charlie opens his remaining Wonka Bar, discovering the final ticket. On his way, he encounters the sinister figure who spoke to the other winners. Introducing himself as Slugworth, one of Wonka's competitors, he offers a cash reward for a sample of Wonka's latest creation: the Everlasting Gobstopper.
Arriving home with the Golden Ticket, Charlie chooses Grandpa Joe as his chaperone. Overjoyed, Grandpa Joe miraculously springs out of bed for the first time in twenty years. The next day, Wonka greets the ticket winners at the front gates of the factory and leads them inside. Each signs a discipline contract before the tour, which begins in the Chocolate Room, a whimsical indoor park with plants and flowers made of candy and a river of chocolate. The visitors meet Wonka's workforce: little people known as Oompa-Loompas.
During the tour, each child's character flaws cause them to give in to temptation, resulting in their unusual elimination. Augustus gets sucked up a pipe after falling into the chocolate river; Violet swells to become a giant blueberry; Veruca falls down a garbage chute; and Mike is shrunk to the size of a chocolate bar. The Oompa Loompas sing a song of morality after each disposal. In the meantime, Charlie and Grandpa Joe enter the Fizzy Lifting Drinks room and sample the beverages against Wonka's orders. The drink makes them float up and have a near-fatal encounter with the ceiling exhaust fan, but burping allows them to escape and descend to the ground.
At the end of the tour, Wonka assures Charlie and Grandpa Joe that the other children will be fine before he hastily retreats to his office without awarding them the promised lifetime supply of chocolate. When they follow him in to ask about this, Wonka angrily informs them that they had violated the contract when they stole the Fizzy Lifting Drinks, thereby forfeiting their prize, and then furiously demands that they leave. Stunned and infuriated, Grandpa Joe vows to give Slugworth the Everlasting Gobstopper in retaliation, but Charlie decides to return it to Wonka instead. Seeing that Charlie did not resort to revenge, Wonka joyously declares Charlie the winner, reinstates his prize, and reveals that Slugworth is his employee, Mr. Wilkinson. The offer to buy the Gobstopper was a morality test for the kids, and only Charlie passed. The trio enters the Wonkavator, a multi-directional glass elevator that flies out of the factory. During their flight, Wonka tells Charlie that he created the contest to find someone worthy enough to inherit his factory, so he invites Charlie and his family to come and live in the factory.
The idea for adapting the book into a film came about when director Mel Stuart's 10-year-old daughter, Madeline, read the book and asked her father to make a film out of it, with "Uncle Dave" (producer David L. Wolper, who was not related to the Stuarts) producing. Stuart showed the book to Wolper, who happened to be in the midst of talks with the Quaker Oats Company regarding a vehicle to introduce a new candy bar from its Chicago-based Breaker Confections subsidiary (subsequently renamed The Willy Wonka Candy Company and sold to Nestl).[6] Wolper persuaded the company, which had no previous experience in the film industry, to buy the rights to the book and finance the picture for the purpose of promoting a new Quaker Oats "Wonka Bar".[7]
Wolper and Roald Dahl agreed that Dahl would also write the screenplay.[7] Though credited for the film, Dahl had not delivered a completed screenplay at the start of production and only gave an outline pointing to sections of the book.[8] Wolper called in David Seltzer for an uncredited rewrite after Dahl left over creative differences. Wolper promised to produce Seltzer's next film for his lack of a credit as they needed to maintain credibility by keeping Dahl's name attached to the production.[8] Also uncredited were several short humorous scenes by screenwriter Robert Kaufman about the Golden Ticket hysteria.[9] Changes to the story included Wonka's character given more emphasis over Charlie; Slugworth, originally a minor character who was a Wonka industry rival in the book, was reworked into a spy so that the film could have a villain for intrigue; a belching scene was added with Grandpa and Charlie having "fizzy lifting drinks"; the walnut-shelling squirrels changed to golden-egg-laying geese; and the ending dialogue.[9][10]
Seltzer also created a recurring theme that had Wonka quote from various literary sources, such as Arthur O'Shaughnessy's Ode, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.[11] After completing the screenplay, Seltzer was exhausted and went on vacation to a remote cabin in Maine. However, whilst filming the final scene Stuart was unhappy with the ending having Dahl's version of Grandpa Joe just exclaiming "Yippee!" The director tracked down the writer to the only phone in the area which was attached to a tree. By chance, Seltzer was passing and answered the call. Stuart told him to think up an ending quickly as the production was waiting at great expense.[c] Seltzer could only recall the overused phrase to fairytale endings therefore reworked Wonka's final line to Charlie: "Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted? ... He lived happily ever after."[12][13]
Wolper decided with Stuart that the film would be a musical and approached composers Richard Rodgers and Henry Mancini, but both declined.[1] Eventually, they secured the songwriting team Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.[1]
Different explanations have been given for the title change to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. In the United States during the 1960s, the term "Mister Charlie" had been used as a pejorative expression in the African-American community for a "white man in power" (historically plantation slave owners) and press reports claimed the change was due to "pressure from black groups".[1] During the same period, US soldiers in the Vietnam War used the derisive term "Charlie" for the Viet Cong, originating from the acronym VC using the callsign "Victor Charlie".[14] The studio publicity stated that the title "was changed to put emphasis on the eccentric central character of Willy Wonka".[1] However, Wolper said he changed the title to make the product placement for the Wonka Bar have a closer association.[7] Stuart confirmed the matter was brought to his attention by some African-American actors and he also claimed to have changed the title, saying, "If people say, 'I saw Willy Wonka,' people would know what they were talking about. If they say, 'I saw Charlie,' it doesn't mean anything".[14]
The book was also in the midst of a controversy when the film was announced. Protest groups including the NAACP had taken issue with the original Oompa-Loompas depicted as African pygmies and compared them to slavery.[14] Stuart addressed the concerns for the film and suggested making them the distinctive green-and-orange characters.[15]
Gene Wilder wanted specific changes to Wonka's costume, including what type of trousers the character should wear, "the color and cut" of his jacket and the placement of pockets. Wilder's attention to detail also requested, "The hat is terrific, but making it 2 inches [5 cm] shorter would make it more special".[16][17]
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