Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

***Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*** is a 1971 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney and David L. Wolper and directed by Mel Stuart, Chuck Jones and Wolfgang Reitherman. It is an adaptation of the 1964 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. The TBD film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics canon, the film tells the story of Charlie Bucket (voiced by Peter Ostrum) as he receives a Golden Ticket and visits Willy Wonka's (voiced by Gene Wilder) chocolate factory with four other children from around the world, while his two animal friends, George (voiced by William Hanna) and Patty (voiced by Pamelyn Ferdin) secretly accompany him to prevent one of Wonka’s rivals from stealing a special candy known as the Everlasting Gobstopper.

Dahl was credited as part of the film's storymen; however, Larry Clemmons, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, John W. Dunn, and David Seltzer re-worked Dahl's screenplay against his wishes, making major changes to the ending and adding two new characters, George and Patty, as well as musical numbers. These changes and other decisions made by Disney led Dahl to disown the film.

With a budget of just $3 million, *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* received generally positive reviews and earned $4 million by the end of its original run. The film became highly popular in part through repeated television airings and home entertainment sales. In 1972, the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score, and Wilder was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, but both nominations lost to *Fiddler on the Roof*. The film also introduced the songs "The Candy Man", which went on to become a popular hit when recorded by Sammy Davis Jr., and "Pure Imagination". The film has been regarded as one of Disney's greatest animated classics, notably one of the biggest cult classics in the animation medium, as well as one of the best film adaptations of a Roald Dahl novel.

In 2014, *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". A live-action remake directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka was released on 2005. A live-action prequel, about a young Wonka character, is scheduled for release in December 2023.

## Plot

In an unnamed town, children visit a candy shop. Charlie Bucket, a poor paperboy, stares through the window as the shop owner sings at the children. He then stops a hungry cat named George trying to eat a talking mouse named Patty and befriends them by offering them a loaf of bread. Walking home, he passes Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. A mysterious tinker recites the first lines of William Allingham's poem "The Fairies", and tells Charlie, "Nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out." Charlie rushes home to his widowed mother and bedridden grandfather Grandpa Joe. After telling Grandpa Joe about the tinker, Grandpa Joe reveals that Wonka locked the factory because other candy makers, including rival Arthur Slugworth, sent in spies to steal many of his recipes. Wonka disappeared, but for three years resumed selling candy; the origin of Wonka's labor force is unknown. Meanwhile, George and Patty steal a box of Wonka Bars from the shop. They arrive at Charlie's home with the box of Wonka Bars, but Charlie convinces them that stealing is wrong and they should return the box.

The next day, after George and Patty returned the box, Wonka announces that he hid five "Golden Tickets" in Wonka Bars. Finders of the tickets will receive a factory tour and a lifetime supply of chocolate. Four of the tickets are found by Augustus Gloop, a gluttonous boy; Veruca Salt, a spoiled girl; Violet Beauregarde, a gum-chewing girl; and Mike Teevee, a television-obsessed boy. As each winner is announced on TV, a man whispers to them. Charlie opens one Wonka Bar, but finds no Golden Ticket and loses hope. The newspapers announce the fifth ticket was found by a millionaire in Paraguay named Alberto Minoleta.

George and Patty earn a dollar by recycling milk bottles, but lose it in a gutter after fighting over it. Charlie finds the dollar and uses it buy a Scrumdiddlyumptious bar. With the change, he also buys a Wonka Bar for Grandpa Joe. The TV news reveals that Alberto Minoleta has been arrested for forging his ticket; when Charlie opens the Wonka Bar, he finds the fifth Golden Ticket. While rushing home, he is confronted by the same man seen whispering to the other winners, who introduces himself as Slugworth and offers to pay for a sample of Wonka's latest creation, the Everlasting Gobstopper. Charlie returns home with the Golden Ticket and chooses Grandpa Joe as his chaperone.

The next day, after George and Patty rush to the factory with the Golden Ticket that Grandpa Joe forgot, Wonka greets the ticket winners and leads them inside where each signs a contract before the tour. Meanwhile, George and Patty notice Slugworth and his henchman Brutus (who is also the very same delivery man who was delivering the box they stole before) devising a sinister plan for Charlie. After avoiding being caught by Brutus, the duo decide to warning Wonka of Slugworth's plan.

The factory includes a river of chocolate, edible mushrooms, lickable wallpaper, and other sweets and inventions. The visitors meet Wonka's labor force, dwarfish men known as Oompa-Loompas. Individual character flaws cause the other winners to give into temptation, resulting in they falling into a trap along with their elimination from the tour while the Oompa-Loompas sing a song of morality after each. Augustus falls into the chocolate river and is sucked up a pipe to the Fudge Room. George and Patty follow Wonka and the other guests on a boat trip to the Inventing Room, where everyone receives an Everlasting Gobstopper. Violet becomes a large blueberry after chewing an experimental gum containing a three-course meal, despite Wonka's warnings. The group reaches the Fizzy Lifting Drinks Room, where Charlie and Grandpa Joe ignore Wonka's warning and sample the drinks. They float and have a near-fatal encounter with an exhaust fan, but Patty saves them by making them burp down, allowing them to descend back to the ground. In the Chocolate Eggs Room, Veruca demands a golden goose for herself before falling into a garbage chute leading to the furnace, with her father falling in trying to rescue her (after they get out, Mr. Salt starts to have a more firm hand towards Veruca by pulling her away by the ear). The group tests out Wonka's Wonkavision, only to have Mike teleport himself and become only a few inches tall.

At the end of the tour, Charlie and Grandpa Joe, now the only two remaining guests, ask about the other children, and Wonka assures them that they will be fine. Wonka then retreats to his office without awarding them the promised lifetime supply of chocolate. George and Patty arrive and warn Charlie that Slugworth and Brutus have stolen a Gobstopper from them and are on their way out of the factory. Following a fight in the Wonkavision Room, Charlie stops Slugworth. After this, Grandpa Joe and Charlie enter Wonka's office to ask about the prize, where Wonka angrily informs them that they have violated the contract by drinking Fizzy Lifting Drinks and allowing George and Patty in the factory and therefore will receive nothing.

Infuriated at this, Grandpa Joe attempts to protest but Wonka demands them all to leave at once. Grandpa Joe suggests to Charlie that he should give Slugworth the Gobstopper, but Charlie returns the candy to Wonka. Because of this, Wonka declares Charlie the winner. He reveals to him and Grandpa Joe that "Slugworth" is really Mr. Wilkinson, an employee of his, and the offer to buy the Gobstopper was actually a morality test which only Charlie passed.

Charlie, Wonka and Grandpa Joe enter the Great Glass Elevator, a multi-directional glass elevator that flies out of the factory. George and Patty shrink Wilkinson and Brutus for the troubles they put them throughout the film and use Fizzy Lifting Drinks to catch up with the others. Soaring over the city, Wonka reveals that his actual prize is the factory; Wonka created the contest to find a worthy heir and Charlie and his family can immediately move in. Wonka then reminds Charlie not to forget about the man who suddenly received everything he ever wanted. Charlie asks, "What ever happened to him?" to which Wonka replies, "He lived happily ever after."

## Voice cast

* Peter Ostrum as Charlie Bucket
* Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka
* Jack Albertson as Grandpa Joe
* William Hanna (uncredited) as George
* Pamelyn Ferdin as Patty
* Vincent Price as Arthur Slugworth/Mr. Wilkinson
* Frederick Worlock as Brutus
* Roy Kinnear as Henry Salt
* Julie Dawn Cole as Veruca Salt
* Leonard Stone as Sam Beauregarde
* Denise Nickerson as Violet Beauregarde
* Dodo Denney as Mrs. Teevee
* Paris Themmen as Mike Teevee
* Ursula Reit as Mrs. Gloop
* Michael Bollner as Augustus Gloop
* Diana Sowle as Mrs. Bucket
* Aubrey Woods as Bill, the Candy Shop owner
* Hans Conried as Alberto Minoleta
* David Battley as Mr. Turkentine
* Mel Blanc as the Tinker
* Peter Stuart as Winkelmann
* The Mellomen as the Oompa Loompas
* Victor Beaumont as Doctor
* Frank Delfino as Auctioneer
* Gloria Manon as Mrs. Curtis
* Stephen Dunne as Stanley Kael
* Tim Brooke-Taylor as Computer scientist
* Ed Peck as FBI Agent

## Production

### Development

The idea for adapting the book into a film came about when director Mel Stuart's ten-year-old daughter read Roald Dahl's book *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* and asked her father to make a film out of it, with "Uncle Dave" (producer David L. Wolper) producing it. Stuart showed the book to Wolper, who happened to be in the midst of talks with Walt Disney to produce the film. Because of the story having many fantasy elements, Walt suggested Wolper and Stuart the project would be more suitable for an animated film. Disney and Wolper persuaded food conglomerate The Quaker Oats Company, which had the ownership rights to the novel, to buy the rights to the book.

Disney and Wolper agreed that Dahl would also write the story. 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. Walt called in a group of storymen consisting of Larry Clemmons, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, John W. Dunn, and David Seltzer for a rewrite after Dahl left due to creative differences, along with uncredited short humorous scenes by screenwriter Robert Kaufman about the Golden Ticket hysteria. Changes to the story included the idea of Slugworth, originally a minor character in the book, being reworked into an actual character so that the film could have a villain for intrigue (only to be revealed to be actually one of Wonka's workers at the end); Charlie was given a pair of animal sidekicks in the forms of George the cat and Patty the mouse, who would "add warmth and comedy to the story and guide the audience throughout the film"; a belching scene was added with Grandpa and Charlie having "fizzy lifting drinks"; and the ending dialogue.

Disney and Wolper decided that the film would be a musical and Wolper approached composers Richard Rodgers and Henry Mancini but both declined while Walt hired the Sherman Brothers to write songs to the films until they were agsined to work on *The Aristocats* (1970) and *Charlotte's Web* (1973). Eventually Wolper secured the songwriting team Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Seltzer 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*.

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. Stuart addressed the concerns for the film and suggested making them the distinctive green-and-orange characters.

Originally, George was originally intended to be voiced by Dick Van Dyke, but after he declined, the filmmakers removed his dialogue from the script in favor of a mute performance, much like Dopey in *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*, Gideon the Cat and Jerry Mouse from *Looney Tunes* fame, Dumbo from the film of the same name, and Toddles from *Peter Pan*.

## Release and reception

*Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* was released on June 30, 1971. It received positive reviews from critics such as Roger Ebert, who compared it to *One Hundred and One Dalmatians*. Ebert said, "All of this is preface to a simple statement: *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* is probably Walt Disney's best animated film since *One Hundred and One Dalmatians*. It is everything that family movies usually claim to be, but aren't: Delightful, funny, scary, exciting, and, most of all, a genuine work of imagination. is such a surely and wonderfully spun fantasy that it works on all kinds of minds, and it is fascinating because, like all classic fantasy, it is fascinated with itself."

By the mid-1980s, *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* had experienced a spike in popularity thanks in large part to repeated television broadcasts and home video sales. Following a 25th anniversary theatrical re-release in 1996, it was released on DVD the next year, allowing it to reach a new generation of viewers. The film was released as a remastered special edition on DVD and VHS in 2001 to commemorate the film's 30th anniversary. In 2003, Entertainment Weekly ranked it 25th in the "Top 50 Cult Movies" of all time. The tunnel scene during the boat ride has been cited as one of the scariest in a film for children, due to its surreal visuals, and was ranked No. 74 on Bravo's *The 100 Scariest Movie Moments*.

In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

### Dahl's reaction

Dahl disowned the film, mainly due to the story's rewrittes after Dahl failed to meet deadlines. Dahl said he was "disappointed" because "he thought the story placed too much focus on two original characters [George the cat and Patty the mouse] and not enough on Charlie at all", as well as the casting of Gene Wilder instead of Spike Milligan for the voice role of Willy Wonka. Dahl was also "infuriated" by the deviations in the plot storymen devised in his draft of the story, including the conversion of Slugworth, a minor character in the book, into a spy (so that the movie could have a villain) and the "fizzy lifting drinks" scene along with music other than the original Oompa Loompa compositions (including "Pure Imagination" and "The Candy Man"), and the ending dialogue for the movie. In 1996, Dahl's second wife Felicity commented on her husband's objections towards the film saying "they always want to change a book's storyline. What makes Hollywood think children want the endings changed for a film, when they accept it in a book?".

## Soundtrack

### Songs

* "The Candy Man" – Bill, the Candy Shop owner
* "Cheer Up Charlie" – Mrs. Bucket
* "It's Your Chance" - Arthur Slugworth/Mr. Wilkinson
* "I've Got a Golden Ticket" – Charlie Bucket, Grandpa Joe, and Patty
* "Pure Imagination" – Willy Wonka
* "Oompa Loompa (Augustus)" – The Oompa Loompas
* "The Wondrous Boat Ride"/"The Rowing Song" – Willy Wonka
* "Oompa Loompa (Violet)" – The Oompa Loompas
* "I Want It Now!" – Veruca Salt
* "Oompa Loompa (Veruca)" – The Oompa Loompas
* "Oompa Loompa (Mike)" – The Oompa Loompas
* "Pure Imagination (reprise)" - Chorus

#### Deleted songs

Some of them were written by the songwriter duo Richard and Robert Sherman, until Walt Disney had offered to them writing songs for both *The Aristocats* and *Charlotte's Web* instead. However, most of these songs would be reused to the 2013 stage musical play based on the book. The only song written by the Sherman Brothers used in the final film was Slugworth's song "It's Your Chance".

* "Almost Nearly Perfect" - Charlie Bucket
* "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" - Patty
* "The Amazing Tale of Willy Wonka" - Grandpa Joe
* "If Your Father Were Here" (replaced with "Cheer Up Charlie") - Mrs. Bucket
* "When Veruca Says" (replaced with "I Want It Now!") - Veruca Salt
* "It's Wonkavision Time" - Willy Wonka

## Media and merchandise

### Theme parks

Costumed versions of Charlie, Willy Wonka, Grandpa Joe, George and Patty make regular appearances at the Disney theme parks and resorts, and other characters from the film have featured in the theme parks. More famously, a dark ride entitled *Charlie's Chocolate Factory Adventure*, opening at Disneyland on June 4, 1999, and at Walt Disney World on December 6, 2012, both as part of Fantasyland and Magic Kingdom, respectively, is loosely based on the film.

## Trivia

* This is the first Disney film with a "Produced by" credit (before that the films Walt co-produced with others had a "Co-Producers" credit) and the first of the Walt Disney Animated Classics canon to open with "Walt Disney Productions Presents". This would continue up until *Goofy's Fantastic Island* (1983).
* The song that Wonka sings on the boat ride (*There's no earthly way of knowing...*) are the only song lyrics taken from Roald Dahl's book. All other songs were written specifically for the film.
* In some scenes, George is seen eating some candies, including chocolate. In real life, chocolate is considered toxic to dogs and cats.
* Gene Wilder, who voiced Willy Wonka, said that he would only make the film under one condition: He wanted Wonka to do a somersault in the scene when he first meets the children. When asked why, the actor said that having Willy Wonka started limping and end up somersaulting would set the tone for that character. He wanted to portray him as someone whose actions are completely unpredictable. His request was granted and in order to do it possible for an animated film, Wilder was also the live-action reference model actor for Wonka, along with the children who played Charlie and the other ticket holders.
* When the film was released, food conglomerate The Quaker Oats Company, which Disney had brought the rights to the original novel, began marketing chocolate bars from its Chicago-based Willy Wonka Candy Company subsidiary, which were named "Wonka Bars", after the fictional candy band, but unfortunately, an error in the chocolate formula caused the bars to met too easily, even while they are on the shelf, so they were taken to market. Nestle now owns the Willy Wonka Candy Company.
* Peter Ostrum, the actor who voiced Charlie Bucket, made NO OTHER films. He instead became a veterinarian. Julie Dawn Cole (who voiced Veruca Salt) and Pamelyn Ferdin (who voiced Patty) were the only ones from the child actors who were still acting in movies.