Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Directed by Mel Stuart
Written by Roald Dahl
Starring Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Peter Ostrum, Roy Kinnear
Release Date June 30th, 1971
Published December 15th, 2023
"We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams" Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
The wrong man named Gene won the Oscar for Best Actor at the 44th Academy Awards. Heck, the wrong man named Gene was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Gene Hackman was the wrong Gene, rewarded for his okay but not spectacular performance as Popeye Doyle in The French Connection. The right Gene was Gene Wilder, the star of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Wilder didn't even merit a nomination and that itself is crime enough. No actor eligible for Best Actor at the 44th Academy Awards delivered the kind of nuanced, strange, and funny performance that Wilder did in Mel Stuart and Roald Dahl's visionary cautionary tale.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory opens with loads of exposition. We meet Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), a poor kid who can't partake in the ludicrous and excessive opening number dedicated to a candy man who appears to give away as much candy as he sells. As this candy retailer regales the kids with the wonders of one Willy Wonka, the greatest chocolatier in the world, Charlie Bucket watches from the outside looking in. He can't stick around or go in as he has to get to work, delivering newspapers and making just enough money to provide a loaf of bread for his family, including his hard-working mother, and his four layabout grandparents. I'm kidding, I'm sure that Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) and the rest of the grandparents laid up in a bed in the middle of the Bucket home are there for a good reason, being very very old.
The plot of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory kicks in when it's announced that the reclusive Willy Wonka has started up his factory again and will open the factory to a group of people who win a contest. The contest involves buying chocolate bars and finding the one that has a golden ticket inside. After an exhaustive introduction to four winners of the contest, four specifically spoiled rotten little kids who will, nevertheless, get a chance to win a lifetime supply of chocolate and a tour of the secretive Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. The tour will be led by Willy Wonka himself, played by the brilliant and insouciant, Gene Wilder.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media
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