ROX-TV takes a hard look at the 1971 release of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” Part one of the article series.

Welcome back to another exciting movie breakdown. Today we are going to do an in-depth look at an American Classic set in England, that’s right, Willy and the whole gang are about to be given a hard looking over. Why? Well, for one, a lot of the movies that are made today just don’t interest me that much. It seems that Hollywood has been out to lunch since the mid to late nineties. Sure, there have been a few good movies to pop out here or there, but on a whole, it seems to me that the imagination and creativity of the world’s most famous movie launch pad just decided to coast for awhile. In this case, almost the last twenty years or so. I don’t know if the world can take much more of the never ending cycle of remakes and movie series that probably should have been left alone after one try.

I think everyone can agree that not all movies were meant to be re-visited over and over again, but here we are in a day in age, where mediocre is good enough. Where the fuck is all the new blood? Has society dwindled down to a place where “Fast and Furious: Part 9” is actually needed? I recently read that not only is Part 9 scheduled for June 25th of this year, there are also two more films in the works. Except for the weird cats driving around “tricked out” Honda Civics, which really just seem like modern day chevettes to me, does anyone need another installment? I will leave that one up to the readers to decide.

Or how about the “Mission Impossible” series with the bizarre and played out Tom Cruise? With the seventh sequel slated to drop in November of this year, does anyone know anybody that is really jazzed up for another chapter? Better yet, who the hell is actually going to see these movies? Sure, the original Top Gun movie was cool and maybe Tom Cruise was once as well, but this “one trick pony” movie shit has got to stop. I guess if your getting paid, who can fault Tom, it just seems like a sad place to spend twenty five years. If the mission is impossible, how does it keep happening?

Anyway, back to the movie at hand, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. It had a terrible re-make with the help of Johnny Depp, who I normally enjoyed in other films such as “The Libertine”, “Fear and Loathing”, and a handful of others. I’m not here for that piece of the action today though. For now, its strictly about analyzing the 1971 original motion picture release. When I was a kid, like with other media and cartoons of the day, I don’t remember being overly critical of the movie. As a child, you liked it because I think there was some expectation that you were supposed to. By the early eighties, when I was a young kid, the movie had already achieved some kind of “status” as a “wonderful” children’s film and the expectation was that kids were supposed to dig it.

There seemed to be a lot of musicals coming out back in the day for kids, although I’m not sure why? I hate musicals, even to this day and after growing up and looking back at some of the movies I once “enjoyed” I am often times disappointed or totally turned off by the show tunes included. Almost all of the original Disney movies that I grew up with featured some kind of bullshit singing. Maybe it was meant to be distracting, to keep kids staring at the movies back then while the parents did their own thing? All I know is that when I re-examine my childhood classics, I am sometimes surprised by how strange and odd they seem in the present day.

“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”: 1971 Release

The original idea that the movie was based on was born in the form of a children’s novel, written by a fellow named Roald Dahl. The man was a former war fighter pilot before eventually cranking out books for kids. When I read up on him a bit, it turns out that the guy had sold more than two hundred and fifty million copies of his work worldwide. That’s pretty impressive even in the present day. The actual book was published in America in 1964 and came out eleven months later in the United Kingdom. This in itself is odd to me, considering it was a British writer, who had wrote a book set in England. Why the hell didn’t it break in England first? Curious my friends, very curious….

Apparently, Roald came up with the story, which was based on his childhood experiences with candy makers. During the 1920’s, the Cadbury titan (2nd in the world next to the Mars company) which is probably best known around Easter time for “Cadbury Eggs” would send test kits of their chocolate creations to schools in exchange for feedback on the products. During the twenties, the other leading British chocolate maker was called Rowntree’s (Kit Kat and Smarties brand creator) and apparently the two dueled pretty hard to best each other. It is said that both companies would attempt to spy on each other to reveal trade secrets, often times sending in “employees” to do the snooping and idea lifting. It’s hard to imagine that there was a chocolate company war raging one hundred years ago, but that is reportedly what was going on…a chocolate cold war so to speak.

So the battle for chocolate superiority and the rather large factories and machinery inside, inspired Roald to write his money maker. Thus, here we are today to discuss the movie and hear my lousy opinions on the “classic”. Why? Why not. I have two takes on the film and some of the questions or situations posed in the original movie need to be examined closer (at least for the sake of this article). Obviously my first take on the film from the early eighties is rather pointless and will be disregarded. This leaves us with the 2nd view, from a critical adult stand point. So without further to do, let’s dive in and really take a hard look at Charlie, his strange family living situation, the candy dealer Willy, the fucked up elevator, and a host of items that either bother me or just ring odd. Here we go…

Opening Scenes: Setting the stage

All movies have to start somewhere I suppose and this film begins with school being let out for the day. The kids leaving school seem to be pretty motivated and are seen running full tilt away from the building. This seems like a bit of over stating the case right out of the gate. The only time kids ran out of school, at least in my life time was on the last day before Summer officially began. I’m not even sure if we actually ran, although there was excitement in the air associated with those three months of freedom from school. In the movie, the kids seem to be in a serious tear to reach “Bill’s Candy Shop” which could easily have been mistaken for a small pub from the outside look of the place.

The kids “belly up to the bar” the same way I did for years, drinking in dive bars and shit holes across Michigan. The joint is headed up by a soda jerk, who gets the kids whatever they request, while peddling some new chocolate merchandise from the Willy Wonka factory. And then it happens, the first damn song, belted out by the soda dick. Any grown man that occasionally busts out into songs about candy is odd and I don’t think I would let my kids anywhere near the place. Although the place is a business, selling candy to kids who seem to somehow have a budget for the goods is believable (we never had money for this growing up) up until a point, the man seems to carelessly give away almost everything in the store. How can a place like that stay in business? Oh well.

During his merry making, the candy seller nearly clips the chin off one of the kids standing near the opening at the bar. It happens quick, but if you pay attention the girl narrowly misses a facial injury as the soda jerk pops the table top open (Author’s note: The clip from YouTube doesn’t show this scene, it’s on the DVD release which I own). It is here that we first get a glimpse of “Charlie”, the one kid in the whole town without money for candy. Perhaps no one told him that the soda ass was giving away almost everything in store without a care. Why doesn’t Charlie just enter the candy shop and get some free shit with the rest of the kids? The world will never know.

Charlie moves on and reports to “work” at a newspaper stand. Although school had just gotten out, he is berated for being “late”. Charlie has to remind the man running the stand that it’s “payday” and the man tosses a few coins to his young worker. I find it hard to believe that the man forgot, since Charlie is his only employee, but I suppose we can give him the benefit of the doubt, once anyway. Upon leaving the stand, Charlie seems to do a rather shitty job of delivering the newspapers, throwing them wildly all over town. It’s a miracle he was able to keep his employment for as long as he had, considering the poor and erratic style of completing his duties.

Even though he only had five or so newspapers to deliver, he managed to take all day delivering them, and we find the young Charlie at dusk, cruising by the Wonka factory gates. As if on que, a serial killer pushing a cart full of butcher knives and cleavers interrupts Charlie’s gaze on the building and drops a bizarre poem of sorts on the unsuspecting lad. “Up the airy mountain, down the rushing glen, we dare not go a hunting, for fear of little men. You see, nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out” says the creepy cart pusher. I’m not sure what kind of town this is, but it sure has a lot of goofy people rolling around. I can’t imagine business would be very good for a meat cleaver dealer at dusk, but maybe they do things differently in England.

Home Sweet Home: Charlie is late again

Charlie runs home after the encounter with the knife dealer and it’s here that we get our first glimpse of Charlie’s “family”. The opening shot of the home features Grandpa Joe and his wife, sitting in bed like John and Yoko. The grandmother says “he’s late”, which if true might be a problem developing for Charlie. Apparently the guy just couldn’t show up anywhere on time. Grandpa Joe declares that Charlie works “too hard for a little boy and should have some time to play”. The only problem is that Joe and his wife don’t work and sit around in bed all day, while Charlie is trying to eek out a living with the newspaper hustle. Why doesn’t Grandpa Joe get a fucking job? Or his old lady for that matter?

As the scene unfolds, more horrific is the fact that Joe and his woman share the bed, which is in the middle of the one room shack, with another adult couple. Talk about tough times. Charlie’s mom says that it takes a lot of work to keep the family going, considering that the two couples are “bedridden” for over twenty years. I’m not sure why Joe and the others refuse to leave the bed for two decades, but it seems rather suspicious to me. If Charlie was eleven years old, that means his mom was probably no older than thirty or so, leaving Grandpa Joe’s age in question. At the oldest, Joe is probably eighteen to twenty years older than his own daughter, putting him at roughly fifty or so. Add to that, his bedridden existence of twenty years and you have a guy that stopped getting out of bed when he was thirty or so. What the hell? Was Grandpa Joe banging smack or what? The cause of his in-activity is never revealed, or the other three adults for that matter. Charlie’s family was shaping up to be pretty non-functioning.

Joe proclaims that when he “gets his strength back” he plans to get moving again to take the load off of Charlie, but the Charlie’s mom refutes the claim, saying she’s yet to see him “set foot” out of the bed in all the years leading up to the uncomfortable conversation. Joe says “maybe if the floor wasn’t so cold” and trails off to eat his soup. If a cold floor can keep a man in bed for twenty years, heaven help us all. I also find it weird that the Charlie’s employer knows Grandpa Joe and wants him to pass along a “hello” for him. If Joe had been in bed for two decades, how the hell did the newspaper man know him? Curious.

Charlie comes home, after being late, and says hello to his elders. The adults are just getting ready to dig into cabbage water and Charlie isn’t impressed. “It’s not enough” he says and the stunned family tries to comprehend his disappointment. “What are you saying” Grandpa Joe chimes in, like he didn’t know that cabbage water was not a suitable meal. Charlie pulls out a loaf of bread and his mother practically accuses him of theft, “where did you get that?” she asks, meanwhile Grandpa Joe doesn’t give a shit about where it came from, he’s ready for some bread. Charlie informs them that he got his first payday, which begs another question. If that were true and he was already showing up late for work during his first week of newspaper employment, I’m afraid Charlie’s future was destined for bed as well. With so much on the line and people counting on him, Charlie couldn’t seem to get to work or home on time, which is troubling.

Forever a saint, even if chronically late, Charlie forks over his remaining money to his mom and Grandpa Joe. No wonder the kid has no money for candy…he keeps giving it all away. He even pays Grandpa Joe a small amount to keep his tobacco pipe full. When Joe tries to refuse the money, Charlie’s mom makes the case for him to keep smoking, instead of letting Charlie have a few bits.

The plot thickens: Charlie can’t win

In the middle of the night, Charlie stays up to discuss the day’s events with Grandpa Joe. He tells Joe about the crazy knife dealer at the gates and mentions the man’s words. Somehow, even though Grandpa Joe has been bedridden for twenty long years, he knows all about the Wonka factory and even name drops “Slugworth” as being the worst of the spies, sent in to steal Willy’s genius ideas. I find it odd that a man in pajamas for over a third of his life, would know so much about the inner workings of the chocolate factory in town. Also if the gates of the factory stayed locked for as many years as Grandpa Joe claims, how the hell does the fucking candy get out to the stores in town and around the world? Curious indeed.

Charlie goes to school the next day and is called upon by his teacher to assist in making a “wart remover” from combustible chemicals. After a minor explosion, the class is interrupted with a large ruckus occurring outside the door. Upon further investigation, it is determined that Willy is opening his factory gates for the first time in years and will be allowing “five” people inside. This will be determined by finding “golden tickets” hidden within the candy bar wrappers of his chocolate bars. The teacher dismisses the class and a mad dash is on for Wonka goodies.

Perhaps since Charlie gave away all his money the night before, he is the only one that doesn’t run out to get a candy bar. I’d feel sad for the kid, but he insisted on paying for Joe’s tobacco, so screw him. He seems to be a victim of his own making. The Wonka mania descends upon the globe and people start losing their minds over the golden tickets. A series of news reports comes next, scrambled in with skits to support the mania. Around this time Charlie loses hope and is certain he can’t win. He visits his mom to declare he has given up hope. After Charlie bails, his mom breaks into a shitty song about how “me and Grandpa Joe can make your troubles go away”. This seems disingenuous because they are partially the reasons why Charlie is broke although working to dusk each day delivering papers.

Five Golden Ticket Winners aka the “addicts”

1. Augustus Gloop from Germany (addicted to food)

2. Mike Teavee from America (addicted to television)

3. Charlie Bucket from England (addicted to being broke)

4. Veruca Salt from United Kingdom, unspecified (addicted to being spoiled)

5. Violet Beauregard from America (addicted to chewing gum)

It seems that the five kids in question all have varying degrees of addiction to different things. With so many addictive personalities being exhibited in the movie, it kind of makes you wonder a little bit more about the original author Roald Dahl. What was going on in his life, that would propel him to make a story revolving around child addicts and candy obsession? These were strange times indeed. Beyond the absurdity of each kid’s life depicted, another odd detail begins to emerge…”Slugworth” who looks a lot like a WWII German officer begins turning up, undetected by adults, and starts communicating with the kids in regards to their special prize trip to the Wonka funhouse. How could Slugworth manage to sneak around so much, if even bedridden Grandpa Joe knew about him and his previous history? Once the tickets are all located, the movie really starts to heat up.

Please come back for part 2 of the “Willy Wonka” breakdown. The story is just warming up.

Signing Off,

Mike Shepard

ROX-TV Head Writer

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