OverviewReviewCastProduction CreditsAwards
   
Watch the trailer
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Wrong Result? More Matches Here
Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Promoted as a family musical by Paramount Pictures, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is more of a black comedy, perversely faithful to the spirit of Roald Dahl's original book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Enigmatic candy manufacturer Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) stages a contest by hiding five golden tickets in five of his scrumptious candy bars. Whoever comes up with these tickets will win a free tour of the Wonka factory, as well as a lifetime supply of candy. Four of the five winning children are insufferable brats: the fifth is a likeable young lad named Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), who takes the tour in the company of his equally amiable grandfather (Jack Albertson). In the course of the tour, Willy Wonka punishes the four nastier children in various diabolical methods -- one kid is inflated and covered with blueberry dye, another ends up as a principal ingredient of the chocolate, and so on -- because these kids have violated the ethics of Wonka's factory. In the end, only Charlie and his grandfather are left. Ostensibly set in England, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was lensed in Germany (as revealed by the film's final overhead shot).

» View DVD Releases
Links to other sites
All about Umpalumpas
Similar Works
Alice in Wonderland  (1951, Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske)
Alice in Wonderland  (1983, Harry Harris)
Annie  (1981, John Huston)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang  (1968, Ken Hughes)
The Electric Grandmother  (1981, Noel Black)
Labyrinth  (1986, Jim Henson)
Mary Poppins  (1964, Robert Stevenson)
Oliver!  (1968, Carol Reed)
The Wizard of Oz  (1939, Victor Fleming)
Doctor Dolittle  (1967, Richard Fleischer, W. Leslie Bricusse)
Other Related Works
 Is related to:    The Witches  (1990, Nicolas Roeg)
   Matilda  (1996, Danny DeVito)
   Role Model: Gene Wilder  (2008, Robert Trachtenberg)
 Has been remade as:    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory  (2005, Tim Burton)