Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (film)
| Year Released: | 1971 |
| MPAA Rating (USA): | G |
| Director: | Mel Stuart |
| Starring: | Gene Wilder Peter Ostrum Jack Albertson Roy Kinnear Julie Dawn Cole Paris Themmen |
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is the original movie adaptation of the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by author Roald Dahl. Dahl also is credited with writing the majority of the screenplay for this movie.
The setup is simple: a large candy maker by the name of Willy Wonka decides to send out five Golden Tickets to all points of the globe, hidden inside his popular chocolate for five lucky children to find. To the recipients of the tickets will go a lifetime's supply of chocolate as well as a tour of the factory that Wonka locked and hid from the public for years, a factory that churns out delicious chocolate confections day and night despite the fact that no one has entered or left the factory for many years.
Enter Charlie Bucket, a boy from a poor family who is forever dreaming of a way out of his lower class existence. Despondently he watches as four of the Golden Tickets are found, but some money found on the street and a chance purchase of a Wonka bar later, and he's standing at the factory gates with the other four children and their parents, waiting to step inside Wonka's factory to behold the wonder within its gates.
This movie is filled with wonder and childhood innocence, as well as lessons of honesty and morality peppered within the many musical numbers. It's surely Dahl's book brought to life with Gene Wilder's Wonka leading the way through his own world, one that typically exists only in the dreams of children.
