By
Gary Susman
Confession time: I saw '
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' in the theater when I was 4 ... and it scared the daylights out of me. All those horrible things happening to the kids -- especially Augustus Gloop nearly drowning in the chocolate river, then getting trapped in that tube -- haunted my dreams.
As an adult, however, I was able to watch the film again and pick up on its sly humor, particularly
Gene Wilder's subtle, mischievous performance, as well as in the film's satire of the adult world as being just as greedy, grasping, and gluttonous as the world of candy-grabbing children. Nowadays, I thoroughly enjoy watching the movie, which wasn't the movie I thought it was at all.
As it turns out, the beloved cult favorite that we've enjoyed for four decades now (it was released 40 years ago this week, on June 30, 1971) isn't the movie any of us thought it was. There are a lot of things people don't know about the familiar film, from its origins as a candy infomercial to its links to 'The Omen,' the 1972 Summer Olympics and the Boston subway system.
Are you ready for a list of 20 things you might now know about 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?' As Wilder's candymaker said during Augustus Gloop's ordeal, "The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last."
1. Watch the opening credits closely, and you'll see that the film's copyright was initially held, not by a Hollywood studio, but by the Quaker Oats company. The cereal maker behind such sweet morning treats as Life and Cap'n Crunch was launching a line of candy bars and had been talking to film and TV producer David L. Wolper about vehicles to promote it.
2. At the same time, director
Mel Stuart took up his 10-year-old daughter's suggestion that he approach family friend Wolper in order to make a film of
Roald Dahl's children's novel 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.' Quaker Oats had never made a movie before, but the company bought the film rights from Dahl and spent nearly $3 million making the movie (a fairly hefty film budget back in 1970).
3. Dahl himself was hired to write the screenplay. Although the finished product bears his sole credit, Stuart actually had the screenplay rewritten by a then-unknown,
David Seltzer, who would go on to write
'The Omen' (about the ultimate bratty kid) and
'Lucas' (about a Charlie Bucket-ish underdog, played by the young Corey Haim).
4. Dahl was said to be so unhappy with Seltzer's rewrite (he felt it focused too much on the Wonka character and not enough on Charlie, and that it had sweetened his story's dark tone) that he refused to allow the movie to be remade again in his lifetime or to sell the film rights to the sequel, 'Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.' (Dahl died in 1990, 15 years before his estate allowed
Tim Burton to remake the 1971 film.)
5. Why was the title changed from the book's 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' to 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'? There are two competing stories. One says that the change was to play up Wonka's name because Quaker's new candy line was called Wonka Bars.
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