Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Plot synopsis:
Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) lives in poverty (of means but definitely not of spirit) with his mother and four grandparents. On his way home from school one day, his paper route takes him past the gate of the town's mysterious and reclusive, but highly-regarded candy-maker, Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder). As Charlie peers through the gates, a tinker walks by, telling Charlie that 'nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out.Later that night, Charlie discusses this with his Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson). Joe explains that the man Charlie saw was right. Many years before, other candy makers (especially one Oskar Sluggworth) were sending spies into his factory to steal Wonka's amazing candy secrets. Finally, Mr Wonka locked the gates, and banished all his workers from the factory. Shortly after this, the factory started up, but no one knows who is making Wonka's candies now.The next day at school, word spreads quickly that a contest has been launched, with five golden tickets hidden in five ordinary Wonka chocolate bars. The big prize is that those who find these tickets, will get to visit Mr Wonka's long-isolated factory for a free tour, and receive a lifetime supply of chocolate. The world then goes crazy, with Wonka candies being sold out at almost every store.The first ticket is found by a gluttonous German boy, named Augustus Gloop (Michael Bollner).The second ticket is found by a spoiled little girl named Veruca Salt (Julie Dawn Cole), whose father utilized his peanut factory workers to open Wonka bars from dawn until dusk.The third ticket is found by a girl named Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson), who is an avid gum chewer, having chewed a piece of gum for three months straight to achieve a world record.The fourth ticket is found by a boy named Mike TeeVee (Paris Themmen), who is obsessed with television, particularly programs regarding cowboys.And no one notices a mysterious, trenchcoat-clad man (Gunter Meisner) always showing up whenever anyone claims a ticket.While these children claim the tickets in turn, and while various adults go to absurd lengths to find the tickets on their own, old Joe uses his tobacco money to buy two Wonka bars, one at a time, for Charlie. Neither bar contains a ticket. But the bond between Charlie and Joe is all the stronger for that.Finally the Paraguayan television network announces that an eccentric millionaire, living in the Andes, has claimed the fifth ticket. With (as everyone thinks) no more tickets to hunt for, the world gets back to normal. Charlie spends one night wandering about town thinking of the chance he missed, but is back at school the next day, doing his best to put it all behind him.But the next morning, he finds a gold sovereign in a storm drain next to the candy shop. He fishes out the coin and goes in to buy some candy, including a regular Wonka bar. Then as he goes to claim his papers to start his route, he reads a stark headline: FIFTH TICKET FRAUD. While a crowd of adults is tsk-tsk-ing about the unmitigated gall that Paraguayan con artist showed, Charlie starts, very slowly, to unwrap the Wonka bar he bought. And what should he find within, but the fifth golden ticket!Charlie's discovery electrifies the townfolk: one of their own has claimed the genuine fifth ticket! So his fanfare consists of holding it up and celebrating for about a minute or so with his paper-route customers and anyone who happens to be looking on--no big deal compared to the media hype that greeted the other children, but that doesn't matter. Not to Charlie. What matters is at last he will get a chance to walk into the factory that has mystified him all his life. (The ticket also entitles him to a lifetime supply of chocolate, but he doesn't think of that just then.)But as he turns the corner, he runs into the very stranger who has insinuated himself into all the other celebrations (though Charlie, not being media-savvy, does not know this). The stranger introduces himself as Oskar Sluggworth and offers him stock certificates if he will quietly abstract from the factory a prototype of an Everlasting Gobstopper.Charlie rushes the rest of the way home and announces his find. So great is the wonderful shock that Old Joe can actually get out of bed!Charlie takes time to read the ticket's terms. Under them, the holder may bring one adult companion. Charlie selects Old Joe, who happily agrees.The next morning, the town does put on a celebration, with a band, to see the opening of the factory door. Promptly at ten o'clock, the door opens. Out walks a man leaning heavily on a cane, and follows a pathway on the pavement. He gets to the end of the path, and leaves the cane behind, stuck into the ground. And then he leans over, and is about to fall...and finishes with a somersault.This slightly crazy man is, of course, Willy Wonka. And that entrance sets the tone for the adventure that follows.He calls all the ticket holders to step forward. Verruca Salt insists on showing up first, though hers was the second ticket. Augustus Gloop doesn't care about things like that, and neither do the other children.Willy leads them all inside, where first he asks them all to sign a contract with print that starts out large and ends in being ultra-fine.In the tour that follows, the children, one by one, fall victim to pranks that play upon their most profound weaknesses of character. Augustus Gloop, the glutton, falls into a river of chocolate and gets sucked up in an extractor. Violet, the rude gum-chewer, starts chewing on a prototype that is supposed to have all the taste of a three-course meal, and seems to turn into a gigantic blueberry. Verruca, the selfish ingrate, falls through an "egg-dicator" and down a garbage chute. Mike Teevee, the TV addict, goes through something like a television transmission and ends up reduced to about a twelfth of his normal size.Charlie and Joe have not been immune. Shortly before the accident to Verruca, the two lag behind and steal "Fizzy Lifting Drinks" and end up floating up a chimney and risk running into an exhaust fan! They manage to burp their way down, and rejoin the others, thinking nothing of it. But at the end of the tour, Willy abruptly shuts himself in his office--which, when Charlie and Joe open the door, turns out to have furnishings sawn in half--half a clock, half a sink, half a table--and half a desk, where Wonka sits on half a chair. Joe diffidently asks about the lifetime supply of chocolate the ticket promised. Willy replies Charlie disqualified himself by breaking the contract. "You STOLE Fizzy Lifting Drinks!" he cries. "You BUMPED into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized! So you get NOTHING! You LOSE! GOOD DAY, sir!"All Joe can think of, is that Wonka has pulled a bait-and-switch. Now he encourages Charlie to let Oskar Sluggworth have the prototype Everlasting Gobstopper Wonka gave him earlier in the tour. But Charlie is having none of that. With consummate dignity and grace he approaches Willy one last time and sets the prototype on the half-desk next to Willy's left hand.And Willy almost transforms. "You won! You WON!" he cries, reaching for Charlie to hug him. "Oh, I'm sorry to put you through this. Now I want you to meet someone." In walks Oskar Sluggworth--or rather, a Mr. Wilkinson, who is Willy's executive assistant!Willy then asks Charlie and Joe to join him in one last thrill-ride: the Wonka-Vator, a turbocharged levitating craft with one button he has never pressed, and now encourages Charlie to press. That one button press sends the craft, and the three, to crash through the glass ceiling and to a height that commands a view of the factory and the town around it. Now Willy reveals his true purpose: he sent out the five golden tickets in the hope of recruiting a successor. And Charlie is the sole qualifying applicant. To make the deal sweeter, Willy encourages Charlie to move in at once, with all his family. Charlie enthusiastically accepts this ultimate award.========================================================CommentariesThe original child actors, as adults, recorded a commentary track for the DVD edition of this title. Julie Dawn Cole (Verruca) developed a theory that Willy Wonka did not let those tickets fall at random. Instead, Mr. Wilkinson/"Oskar Sluggworth" deliberately placed those tickets with four children who could each use a lesson in humility, and with Charlie. Willy surely noticed Charlie all his life, and no doubt decided on him as his successor. But first he must test Charlie. Hence the other four contestants, who could never qualify, and the tour taking him conveniently past the Fizzy Lifting Drinks. Hence also how conveniently Charlie could find a gold sovereign in a storm drain, on the very morning he can read a banner headline exposing the Paraguayan claimant as a fraud.The test, of course, was not whether Charlie would forgo the temptation. It was how he would handle rejection due to bait-and-switch. Charlie handled himself like a champion; hence his victory.

Tags: boring, fantasy, whimsical, cute, cult, psychedelic, entertaining

Review:
Surprisingly, Roald Dahl (author of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, on which this film is based) reportedly hated this big screen version of his book.
In fact, it comes high up on my list of all-time movie favourites.The Wonka Chocolate Factory is an amazing building from which some of the most scrumdiddlyumptious sweets are delivered to the world's candy stores.
Young Charlie Bucket, a poor boy whose family cottage lies within sight of Wonka's factory, dreams of becoming a winner - but with barely a penny to his name, does he have a chance?What makes Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory such a success is the way it skillfully blends entertainment and a serious underlying moral.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is simply magic - a film that everyone must see, especially parents whose kids are just becoming that bit too big for their boots!.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a truly magnificent piece of filmmaking and remains one of the most fascinating and wonderful adventure films ever made.
Until now, pretty much the only movie I associate with 1971 is A Clockwork Orange, and it's just strange for some reason to find out that this classic movie was made so long ago.At any rate, Willy Wonka is a tremendously imaginative and inspiring film.
They are not just songs about the candy-making genius of Willy Wonka or the excitement of being able to tour his mysterious factory, but they are about life in the real world.
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it'), but there are also some that have to do mostly with the movie but are still just as enjoyable, such as the classic song that Wonka sings in the tunnel on board his boat (curiously named `Wonkatania'), which was creepily covered by Marilyn Manson a couple of decades later.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is one of those rare movies that comes along and completely changes the way that fantasy films are made.
So when a miracle upon miracles happens, and Charlie finds a golden ticket, it just may prove to be a turning point far beyond his wildest dreams.They say that true love lasts a lifetime, so shall it be the case with Willy Wonka and myself.
Songs that I memorised back in my youth have never left me, and now as a considerably middle aged adult male, I can still embrace, and feel the magic, whilst enjoying the darkly knowing aspects of this fabulous and wondrous black comedy.Roald Dahl was quite a writer of note, and thankfully the makers here have brought his astute morality tale to vivid cinematic life.
The greatest gift that Willy Wonka gives, tho, is that of the set designs and art direction, where in an almost hypnotically drug induced colourful world, Wonka's factory is a child's dream come true, however, peril is at every turn as life's lessons dolled out courtesy of the scarily cute Oompa Loompas.Songs are provided by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricuse, with the sumptuous art coming from Harper Goff.
But ultimately it's the story and the way it appeals to every age group that makes Willy Wonka a prize treasure, the kids love it, while the adults watching with them will be wryly nodding and trying to suppress the onset of a devilish grin.Pure magic is Willy Wonka, see it now in High Definition TV to fully realise the dream/nightmare on offer, oh oh I love it so.
Willy Wonka is the stranger with a bag of chocolate that parents are always warning their kids about, but what he's really offering is a seductive nightmare in a kaleidescope of candy colors, a cautionary tale told with fairy story whimsy.
Despite it's dark little messages, it still made light of everything and made this movie "satisfying and delicious".You'll see a world of pure imagination and will absolutely fall for Willy Wonka.
But one day, he hears the news that Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) is sending out five golden tickets and then letting the winners go into his factory.
"If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it." Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory is one of the best children films of all-time.
Jack Albertson does a nice job of Charlie's loving grandpa and so do the bratty kids, especially the English girl who is so bad you have to laugh at her.The first part of the story was a good satire on how people sometimes make trivial things so important and how the news media gets carried way with stupid issues.
(Wow, look at it now!) The second half of the story is intriguing because of the co-star of the film: Willy Wonka - a no-nonsense candy maker who doesn't put up with the brats - was fascinating to watch.
So when the music for "Pure Imagination" started playing, I thought, "Oh great, a musical number!" I was just about to press the fast-forward button when Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) began singing.Within about two seconds, I was completely mesmerized!
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has got to be one of the people's most fantastic movies ever i think.
The movie might start out a little slow and overly dramatic with the extended portrait of the poor Charlie Bucket who has to work in order to support his family and he can only secretly dream about winning a grand tour in the wonderful chocolate factory owned by the mysterious Willy Wonka.
New surprises and eccentric plot-twists are provided every couple of seconds and Gene Wilder's jolly (but tempered) performance as the extravagant factory-owner really makes this movie complete.
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a beautiful film which I can still watch today and enjoy.Before I saw this movie I had read the book entitled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and it was magic.
Wonka is a benevolent old chocolate maker who invites some kids round to his chocolate factory where they can see all his delights and visit his magical world.The really great thing about a film like this is how it can whisk you off to another world.
Aside from Dahl's writing, there are strong performances throughout the movie especially Gene Wilder as "Willy Wonka" who is perfect.
If there was a film I remember fondly from my childhood, it wouldn't be The Wizard of Oz, but Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.This seems extremely well done for 1971 (Though this was the year of A Clockwork Orange and The French Connection).
The songs are all classic( even "Cheer Up Charlie" which seems to be often skipped over while watching the film, plus it has the best vocals).The performances are just simply wonderful.
Yet, somehow, you can't help but like him, at least as he's played by Gene Wilder in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," the semi-psychedelic, and "psychotronic," 1971 version of Roald Dahl's classic children's novel.
But, as Wilder plays him, you sense the sweetness behind the wild gleam in his eyes; he's really hoping that one of the five children he's invited to tour his chocolate factory will be a worthy heir to the world of his imagination.Yes, Wonka is a cynic and a misanthrope.
The make up and costumes of the Oompa-Loompas (Wonka's workers), on the other hand, are simply embarrassing.Yet despite these flaws, "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is hugely entertaining and probably the best family film of the 1970s.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)This is one of those classic movies we've ALL seen, and I mean ALL.
I hope I don't sound like I'm fawning, but the sarcastic quips and baiting he provide in his Wonka character are exacting and just simply laugh-out-loud hilarious.To me this is one of the last of the great non-Disney children's films.
Made in a day and age when process shots were expensive and hard to produce, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory rely on the musical trend of the time, but do so successfully I think.
Willy Wonka in this film is an unknown man who makes the worlds best candy and of course chocolate.
That film scared me way more than Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
I know that the new Depp vehicle will be a better version of the book and Dahl's fantastic writing will come to life through Tim Burton, but I doubt if the new movie will ever take away from the magic of Gene Wilder; the acting by the five fantastic kids; and of course, the chocolate.
I would have to say that Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is one of the all time greatest films.
No matter how many times I have watched this tape, I love it more and more.Except the Oompa Loompas.I have nothing against little people, but the Oompa Loompas always creep me out, with their weird looks and bursting into song (Oompa Loompa doompade doo/I've got another puzzle for you), just creep me out!Otherwise, I like the film (I never read the book, but I've heard that it doesn't stick too close to it).
Winner of a golden ticket along with 4 other kids, he gets to go on a magical tour of Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
Wonka (Gene Wilder, who seems to enjoy torturing the kids).The film still holds up over 30 years later and I still love the ending.But still...Those DAMN OOMPA LOOMPAS!!!!.
This makes the film even more enjoyable for children; they get to see their parents acting like maniacs, the way the children themselves would.But it is five children who find the tickets, and they are hand-picked to be the worst examples of bratty kids: the overfed glutton, the snotty gum-chewer, the smarmy couch potato, and of course the most demanding, spoiled little demon in history (in my opinion, one of the greatest performances by a child actor ever)But the fifth is the golden child, the hard-working, honest little boy who has never had anything.
After recently watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory for the first time in years, I was amazed at how funny I found it, even though I'm no longer the little kid who used to love it.
The children in the film play the parts to perfection, the songs and music are fun and full of life and Gene Wilder is absolutely brilliant as Willy Wonka.
He shows Johnny Depp how Wonka should be played, with just enough oddness and darkness to counter the 'candy man' persona.All five of the children give great performances and ultimately it is the combination of all these things that for me mean that this is the version I will remember..
Roald Dahl's Grimm-like book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" gets a careful, pointed musical treatment here, involving five Golden Ticket-winning tykes who get to tour a mysterious candy factory--at their own expense.
Granted I haven't read every book and read every movie, but I have read the book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and yes it does have the same plot and moral, but there are so many changes made.OK, the reason I love this film is because of a few things.
Watching this movie as a kid, "Willy Wonka the Chocolate Factory" works great on whimsy alone; the technicolor factory, eccentric candymaker, people merrily bursting into song.
As well as being often psychedelic, it is Gene Wilder's wild yet subtle portrayal of the unpredictable and possibly quite evil Willy Wonka that truly captures Dahl's essence.Poverty-stricken Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) lives in a cramped house with his mother and the bed-ridden Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson).
Five golden tickets have been placed in Wonka Bars throughout the world, and Charlie, finding the fifth and final ticket, arrives with Grandpa Joe along with fellow winners Veruca Salt (Julie Dawn Cole), Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson), Mike Teevee (Paris Themmen) and Augustus Gloop (Michael Bollner) to meet the eccentric inventor.This is one of those popular films that everyone had seemed to seen apart from me, so I was expecting a familiar family film full of catchy songs and annoying freckly kids.
There are bright, flashing lights, strange music, and various disturbing imagery (including a chicken being decapitated) that infest the screen, making me wonder if I was in fact watching a children's movie, or some f****d- up acid trip from the 70's.Gene Wilder has made many films that portray his energy and comedic ability that often borders on genius, but he blew me away as Wonka.
What is so great about Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is it seems like a nice kids film but really it's a Grimm's Fairy-tale.
Then Pure Imagination, I Want It Now, the not-so-memorable but sweet Cheer up Charlie, the Ooompa Loompa songs sung when a kid messes up, and a few others.(I did not forget about Golden Ticket.) Actually, this is one of those movies that speaks for itself-if you have not seen it-you are missing out..
Willy Wonka is arguably one of the best characters in film history as Gene Wilder plays him to perfection and was truly sad to see him past in 2016.
I believe Gene Wilder should have been at least nominated for an Oscar of his portrayal of the candy maker.Overall if you haven't seen this film, you will be living in bland world until you take a golden ticket tour into Wonka's chocolate factory.
The characters are all so memorable, with a great cast to back them up, particularly Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, Peter Ostrum as Charlie Bucket, and Jack Albertson as Grandpa Joe. The songs are all magnificent, my favorite being Pure Imagination.
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is an American film from 1971 starring Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, and introducing Peter Ostrum as Charlie.
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) is a film like no other.
But all the better, his entrance is perhaps the most memorable one in cinematic history (yes, better than Orson Welles in "The Third Man").Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is NOT a kid's movie.
This is the perfect children's film with music and comedy and, of course, candy.The movie is nothing like the book.
I especially love one of the last lines in the movie where Dahl shows his total ability for sweet innocence (and Wilder delivers it to perfection) when Wonka tells Charlie, "And Charlie: don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he'd ever wished for." and Charlie asks, "What happened?" and this is when you're sure that he's gonna give you one of those righteous, cautionary, adult message of the preachy kind when he says, magically, "He lived happily ever after." *sigh* ....
Even as a very small child I did not understand why they gave the movie a different title, then I realized it was because it had nothing to do with the book.Very little of Rould Dahls story is here, instead we are flooded with cheap sets, chocolate that looks like dirty water, bad acting and the some of the worse songs ever.
To win the tour, you have to find a golden ticket inside your Wonka chocolate wrapper...Sweet, wonderful, imaginative movie with some great moral themes.
I've read and seen all his books and films, but if there was a personal favourite of mine, then I would have to say that Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory would be right up there.
I say that because if you look at other adaptations of Roald Dahl, which came out later, not only they were really good, but I still don't think they could stack up to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
Granted, Gene Wilder has always been good (especially when co-starring with Richard Pryor), but this version of "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" was pretty hokey.
Although many people found the movie great,well, I didn't and so will you.First of all if you read the book you'll probably come upon this movie and feel desperate to watch it,but don't it's a waste of time, the props are junky,the acting, oh my god,it's not even funny, it's even worse than you imagine it will be,I also hate the characters and Willy Wonka is is bad, this movie doesn't even have sounds or special effects and the music(yuck),but come on give these guys a break it's in the 70's.Heres a tip if you read the book and dying to see the movie, turn to CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY starring Johnny Depp,this movie is funnier and so darn cool,the actors are okay and I would recommend this movie for RONALD DAHL readers.Hope this comment was useful..
What a magical movie this is, what a wonderful story-- every child should see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original, the classic....
Fantasy sparks imagination, and in a film like "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," that's probably a good thing, because applying any sense of logic to this story will give you a brain tumor.The film centers around a small, poor, basically-homeless boy named Charlie.
I like comedies, action, drama, sci-fi--the works; but I've never been one for fantasies.But if one film has ever sparked imagination, nothing has as much as "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."3.5/5 stars - maybe 4 -.
When he finds a ticket he and 4 other children from around the world get the chance to enter the weird world of chocolate production with their guide, Willy Wonka himself.Based on the Roald Dahl book `Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' this film is a wonderful little piece of imagination and whimsy.
With a little bit of luck ,Charlie finds of the golden tickets and dives into an incredible adventure with Willy Wonka through the chocolate factory.I really recommend this movie to everyone who wants to use their imagination and It's definitely a movie you could re-watch and still enjoy it as much as the first time..
Gene Wilder is very good as Willy Wonka, but this entire cast performed well, down to the most obnoxious child.
'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' will always be considered the ultimate family film and for many, one of their favourites growing up.