

The life lessons could be construed as trite, but with Anthony Newly and Leslie Bricusse’s chirpy songs and the dark stabs of humour, even teasing feints of child torture, it never drifts too far into the sentimental. Imagine room upon room where everything is edible, where rivers runs with chocolate milk, secret formulas are concocted for everlasting gobstoppers and golden geese lay chocolate eggs, all Dahl’s genius is recreated in a primary coloured sheen like a giant sweet shop conjured up on LSD. With the exteriors filmed in a fairy-tale Germany, the factory is a childhood fantasy turned madhouse, a trippy, sensuous micro-world that mixes temptation with moral burden that each winner will learn to their peril. And those orange-skinned slave-imps the Oompa Loompas serve up all Dahl’s witty warnings of the wages of naughtiness as magnificently choreographed tick-tock nursery-songs.Īll this though pales in the face of Harper Goff’s art direction. Peter Ostrum’s Charlie is rightly goody-goody but not mawkish, and across the troupe of brats and parental disasters everyone fits the bill of these gross creations. Surprisingly, Gene Wilder proves perfectly cast as the weird combination of the avuncular and the eccentric in Willy Wonka, just adding a layer of sinister to his aloof mad-inventor routine. But from tip to toe Mel Stuart turns Dahl’s delicious fable into glowing cinema. It even manages to add to the original book, successfully giving the script a more movie-like dynamic in the addition of sinister Oslo Slugworth (Gunter Meisner) who might be manipulating events from the outside.

Gene wilder willy wonka and the chocolate factory album series#
You can check out the entire 2002 interview with Gene Wilder above, thanks to the CNN YouTube channel.Roald Dahl’s immaculate morality tale is gloriously realised in this colourful fantasy with decent songs. As someone who loved the Roald Dahl series about Charlie Bucket and the mysterious Willy Wonka, I grew up loving everything that Gene Wilder did with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.While. When letting Wilder come on to a set, it sounds like it was best to follow his lead. The entire Transylvania Station scene in Young Frankenstein was reportedly all his idea. Gene Wilder partnered with Mel Brooks for a string of legendary comedies including The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein, where he was also allowed to ad-lib and come up with gold. In addition to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Wilder had a number of other very notable roles throughout his long career. He sadly passed away in 2016 after a three-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. Today, June 11th, would have been the actor's 87th birthday. and found that Mel Brooks was a great influence on his screen writing. When he was 11 he wanted to be a comedian like Sid Ceasar then when he was 15 and saw Lee J Cobb in Death of a Salesman he decided he would be a comedy actor. The interview with Gene Wilder originally took place in 2002 with Larry King. Gene Wilder, Actor: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory will be available on. Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) welcomes the winners to his factory. The film tells the story of a poor child named Charlie Bucket who, after finding a Golden Ticket in a chocolate bar. Watch the clip titled 'Welcome to the Factory' for the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). It is an adaptation of the 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. The director then asked, "Are you saying you won't do that film if you can't do that?" to which Wilder replied "That's what I'm saying. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 American musical fantasy film directed by Mel Stuart and starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. When Stuart asked about the deception, Wilder replied, "'because no one will know from that point on whether I am lying or telling the truth,'" which is a fundamental piece of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. And I fall forward onto my face and do a forward somersault and jump up, and they all start to applaud.'"Īs it turns out, Gene Wilder's explanation about the introduction of Willy Wonka confused Mel Stuart, but it displayed just how well the actor had the character figured out. 'And I walk slowly and you can hear a pin drop. He said, 'You wanna do it?' and I said, 'Well, I'll tell you, I will do it if I can come out, and all the crowd quiets down, and I am using a cane.' Oh, my God. And Mel Stuart, the director, came to my home in New York. His idea became one of the most memorable parts of a very memorable movie. As it turns out, Wilder was already imagining the best way to pull off the eccentric character and presented an idea to director Mel Stuart after reading Roald Dahl's source material. In an interview from 2004, Gene Wilder spoke about being approached for the part of Willy Wonka and his mindset going into it.
