Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 American-Anglo musical fantasy film directed by Mel Stuart, and starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. It is an adaptation of the 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and tells the story of Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum, in his only film appearance) as he receives a Golden Ticket and visits Willy Wonka's chocolate factory with four other children from around the world.
Filming took place in Munich in 1970, and the film was released by Paramount Pictures on June 30, 1971. With a budget of just $3 million, the film received positive reviews and performed well in 1971, earning about $4 million at the end of its original run. It then made an additional $21 million during its 1996 re-release.
The film has since developed a cult following especially due to its 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 lost both to Fiddler on the Roof. 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".
Until 1977, Paramount distributed the film. From then on, all the rights to the film were handed over to Warner Bros. for home entertainment purposes starting in the 1980s.
Plot
In an unnamed European town, children go to a candy shop after school. Charlie Bucket, whose family is poor, can only stare through the window as the shop owner sings "Candy Man". The newsagent for whom Charlie works after school gives him his weekly pay, which Charlie uses to buy a loaf of bread. On his way 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 his four bedridden grandparents. After he tells Grandpa Joe about the tinker, Joe tells him that Wonka locked the factory because his arch-rival, Arthur Slugworth, and other candy makers sent in spies disguised as employees to steal Wonka's recipes. Wonka disappeared, but three years later began selling more candy; the origin of Wonka's labour force is a mystery.
Wonka announces to the world that he has hidden five "Golden Tickets" in his chocolate Wonka Bars. The finders of these tickets will be given a tour of his factory and a lifetime supply of chocolate. Four of the tickets are found by Augustus Gloop, a gluttonous German boy; Veruca Salt, a spoiled British girl; Violet Beauregarde, a gum-chewing American girl; and Mike Teevee, a television-obsessed American boy. As each winner is heralded to the world on television, a sinister-looking man whispers to them. Then, the fifth ticket is found by a millionaire in Paraguay, South America, much to the dismay of Charlie and his family.
The next day, Charlie finds money in a gutter and uses it to buy a Wonka Bar. He has change left that he uses to buy another Wonka bar that he intends to bring to his family. At that time, the newspapers reveal that the Paraguayan millionaire had forged a ticket, and when Charlie opens the Wonka bar, he finds the real fifth golden ticket. Racing home, he is confronted by the sinister man seen whispering to the other winners. The man introduces himself as Arthur Slugworth and offers to pay Charlie for a sample of Wonka's latest creation, the Everlasting Gobstopper.
Charlie returns home with his news. Grandpa Joe is so elated that he finds he can walk, and Charlie chooses him as his chaperone. The next day, Wonka greets the ticket winners at the factory gates. Each is required to sign an extensive contract before they may begin the tour. After a trip up in an small elevator, Wonka allows the group to enter the Chocolate Room where giant edible candy and the chocolate river is located. Wonka's workers are beings known as Oompa-Loompas. Wonka explains to the group that the Oompa-Loompas once lived in a horrible country called "Loompaland" and Wonka transports the entire population of Oompa-Loompas to his factory for their safety.
Augustus drinks from the chocolate river against Wonka's protests that the chocolate river must be untouched by human hands, but Augustus falls in and is sucked up a pipe to the Fudge Room. After a calm but suddenly scary ride on a boat through the tunnel that shows scary images. They reach the Inventing Room filled with marvelous inventions where Wonka warns them not to mess about, touch, taste or telling. Wonka gave the remaining ticket winners an Everlasting Gobstopper on the condition that they never talk about or show them to anyone. After a machine produces an experimental three-course meal gum, Violet chews on the gum, against Wonka's warnings and blows up into a blueberry and is rolled off to the juicing room. The group reaches the Fizzy Lifting Drinks Room, where Charlie and Grandpa Joe disregard Wonka's warnings and sample the drinks. They enjoy their effects of the drinks in the air until they have a near-fatal encounter with an exhaust fan. But they escape from a close shave by burping repeatedly until they reach the ground and they rejoin the tour. Wonka, meanwhile, was unaware of the incident. In the Golden Egg Sorting Room, Veruca demands a goose that lays golden chocolate eggs, which leads her to falling down the garbage chute leading to the furnace, her father shortly dives in trying to rescue her, but luckily the furnace is only lit on other days, meaning that they'll get a sporting chance to escape. In the television room, Mike then succumbs to the lure of "Wonkavision", which teleports Mike but leaves him only six inches tall.
At the end of the tour, Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe remain, but Wonka dismisses them, without awarding them the promised lifetime supply of chocolate. Grandpa Joe follows Wonka to him ask about this, and Wonka angrily reveals to him that because they violated the contract by stealing Fizzy Lifting Drinks, they receive nothing. Seeking revenge, Grandpa Joe suggests to Charlie that he give Slugworth the Gobstopper, but Charlie instead returns the gobstopper to Wonka and apologizes.
Wonka feeling remorseful, immediately changes his tone, and declares Charlie the winner. He reveals that "Slugworth" is actually an employee named Mr. Wilkinson, and the offer to buy the Gobstopper, as well as Wonka's rant, was a test; Charlie was the only one who passed. The trio enter the "Wonkavator", a multi-directional glass elevator that flies out of the factory. Soaring over the city, Wonka tells Charlie that his actual prize is the factory itself; Wonka created the contest to find a child honest and worthy enough to be his heir. Charlie and his family will move into the factory immediately and take over its operation when Wonka retires.
- ↑ "WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (U)" (August 20, 1971). Retrieved on August 9, 2015.