Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

MOVIE #1,135 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 09.01.23 I will be taking a break from double posting on Mondays and Fridays in September to give myself a slight breather as I’ll be on the road for much of the end of August and won’t be able to take in my usual glut of cinema. This one is the lone exception as I watched it recently with my daughter after we finished the original Roald Dahl book. For starters, it absolutely still holds up and really its only flaw is that Gene Wilder isn’t in the movie until halfway through. This both heightens his appearance/role but it also makes the opening 45 minutes a tad boring by comparison.

I hadn’t realized until this rewatch that Roald Dahl also penned the screenplay and briefly worked as a screenwriter in the 60s, even penning two James Bond adaptations (for You Only Live Twice and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). Interestingly enough he wound up disowning the final film version of Willy Wonka both because of deviations made in the production and ultimately placing too much of the emphasis on Wonka instead of Charlie (and that’s obvious in the title change). But, that being said, it truly is Wilder in the titular role that makes this movie work. Visually, it is definitely fun if not dated but none of it works without his performance at the center. It’s as hilarious as it is completely bizarre. Wilder presents an affect that is uncanny, almost creepy at times, but constantly engrossing. It’s the rare execution that is both perfect and impossible to explain.

And not to disagree with the master Dahl, but I found most of the deviations of the original story to be mostly positive changes, especially the ending, which is a bit more complicated than the book but actually strengthens the character of Charlie as well as the moral implications. The book just kind of ends with him getting the factory and I think the final twist in the film is the better conclusion.

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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 candymaker 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. It was released on June 30, 1971.