Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Directed by Mel Stuart
Written by Roald Dahl from his book
1971/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

[last lines]
Willy Wonka: But Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted.
Charlie: What happened?
Willy Wonka: He lived happily ever after.

What a treat!  This one works at any age.

The setting is a kind of heightened alternative universe where the colors are especially bright and everybody’s personalities are outsized.  The mysterious Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) disappeared several years before and no one has been observed going into or out of his factory since.  Nonetheless production has remained prodigious.

Charlie (Peter Ostrum) lives in a slum with his widowed mother and four bedridden grandparents (they literally share the same bed).  Charlie thinks of his family before he thinks of himself but, being a boy, loves candy.  Willy Wonka comes out of retirement to announce that five golden tickets will be included in the millions of candies he sells and the winners will be invited into his factory to see and experience its wonders.  The grand prize winner will receive a life time supply of chocolate.  Greedy children all over the world start buying up Wonka bars like there were no tomorrow.  Charlie is poor and can get his hands on maybe three bars.  But the last one contains a golden ticket!  Like all the other winning children, he is approached by a competitor offering lucrative cash awards for bringing back Wonka’s latest invention, the Everlasting Gobstopper.

All the children are entitled to bring one guest and Charlie’s Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) suddenly finds he can walk after all!  Then we are introduced to the truly dreadful children who are the other contestants.  All these children enter a wonderland.  But some of them just cannot follow the rules or heed the advice of the Oompa Loompas who churn out the candy.

Gene Wilder is so incredible in this movie.  He is just the perfect mixture of sweetness and slyness.  I cannot imagine anyone else in the part.  The story, too, has something for everyone.  Good wins out over evil.  Actions have consequences.  And kindness does pay. There’s a slight feeling of foreboding that undercuts the fantasy and makes the movie work on many different levels.  I also love the music.  Recommended.

Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley and Walter Scharf were nominated for the Best Music, Scoring Adaptation and Original Song Score Oscar.