50 years ago, on June 30th, 1971, the movie musical “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” was released. This is a movie that I have grown up with and I have never got bored with watching it or listening to the music.
The film was based on the book by Roald Dahl called “Charlie and the chocolate factory”. It was directed by Mel Stuart based on the screen play by Roald Dahl. Stuart had been introduced to the book by his daughter. David Seltzer was brought in to adapt Dahl’s screen play and bolster it with more drama and music. It has been said that Dahl did not like the result because it did not stick to his original story. However, Dahl did spend a lot of time on set during the filming, so it is not clear how true his criticism of Seltzer’s adaptations was. Dahl did initially suggest Spike Milligan as Willy Wonka because it fitted the image inside his head, but, as we all know Gene Wilder fitted the role fantastically. The name of the film differs from the book because it was actually made to promote a new product by Quaker Oats. The company sponsored a lot of Wolper’s TV programmes and planned to make and sell Wonka Bars, hence Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. However, this backfired because the Wonka bars had a flaw that cause them to melt on the sweet shop shelves. They were a flop! Surprisingly, the film also flopped at the box office, but since then it has been shown over and over on TV and has built up a massive fan-base.
During pre-production Stuart and Wolper decided that the film should be a musical. Wolper drafted in his friends, the songwriters Anthony Newly and Leslie Bricusse. Newly and Bricusse had worked together before on numerous projects, such as the title song from Goldfinger with music by John Barry and sung by Shirley Bassey. Walter Scharf was enlisted to arrange and orchestrate the music the film - bringing together the songs and creating pieces (e.g., incidental music) that resulted in a holistic score. Scharf had previously worked with both Wolper and Stuart on documentaries and films, such as The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Belgium and numerous TV programmes for the National Geographic Society, but he had fallen out with Stuart and was reluctant to fly out to Munich to join the rest of the cast. However, he did decide to go and was impressed by the Munich-based orchestra that had been employed to work with him.
The opening titles of the film roll with the Overture which consists of two songs, Golden Ticket and Pure Imagination. This is one of my favourite parts of the score, because of its orchestration and the huge sound that it makes. This gives the impression that it is a big budget film, even though it wasn’t. The music creates a sense of anticipation at the wonderful story that is about to unfold, whilst the titles consist of a montage of chocolate making which ramps-up the excitement. The footage for this sequence was shot at the Toblerone factory in Switzerland.
Almost immediately after the opening titles we hear The Candy Man song, sung by veteran British stage performer Aubrey Woods, although it would be Sammy Davis Jr who would later make the song famous. Woods played Bill the sweet shop owner, who doesn’t seem interested in making any money because he’s just giving all his candy away during the number! The scene shows how important candies are to kids; confectioners like Wonka and Slugworth are like gods in their eyes. But, as the upbeat song tails off, Charlie Bucket is shown outside the shop looking in. He has the same desires as the other kids but is unable to access the wonderful treats on offer because he is poor. Here begins the story of the divide between the haves and the have not's.
The next song accentuates this trope as it stands in binary opposition to The Candy Man. Cheer up, Charlie is a downbeat ballad sung by Charlie’s mother after Charlie expresses his upset at the unfairness of life after Wonka announces a competition to find 5 golden tickets hidden in Wonka bars; the poverty of the Bucket family means he has virtually no chance of finding a ticket as he can’t afford to buy the chocolate.
But Charlie finds a coin and is able to buy another Wonka bar. At this point we hear a reprise of The Candy Man music as he finds himself outside the sweet shop. As he leaves the shop we see a commotion around the newsstand and a crowd gathering; ticket number five was a fake! Charlie takes the unopened bar of chocolate from his pocket…..and we hear a harp, tremoring strings, and, with a glint of gold, we hear a piccolo. Throughout the film repetition of pieces of incidental music provide cues to the audience for similar situations. Magical moments are often preceded by bells, chimes and harps, accentuating the wondrousness about to happen.
Finding the golden ticket is heralded by a trumpeting of I’ve Got a Golden Ticket and this plays out in an upbeat and dramatic style as he runs home. This piece harks back to the overture, but also provides us with a hint of the song Grandpa and Charlie are about to sing. Suddenly, however, the music stops abruptly as the baddie, Slugworth, enters the scene and the music switches to Slugworth’s leitmotif, which differs with the child, but is always sinister in nature. Slugworth explains to Charlie that he will make him rich, so he can buy “A new house for your family, and good food and comfort for the rest of their lives”, but only if he steals an everlasting gobstopper from Wonka. When Charlie arrives home at his tiny shack, he reveals to his family that he has found the last ticket and wants Grandpa Joe to go with him to the factory. The Golden Ticket duet song plays, with scenes of slapstick and the mimicking of top hat and tails with his regular hat and walking stick.
On the day of the factory visit, as all the children gather outside the gates, the brass band plays what resembles the Old Comrades March. It gives the feeling of a grand occasion, with all the pomp and ceremony we come to expect with important and official events. This gives the feeling that Wonka is seen as a very important man and the children are very privileged to be allowed into his secretive world. As the guests enter The Chocolate Room we hear the harp play as the door opens and it is revealed to the audience. During the song Pure Imagination we hear ticking chimes, which seem to signal the passing of time as if Wonka knows his time is running out to find a child that he feels can be trusted and who is worthy of taking over his factory. Later in the factory visit, Charlie and Grandpa Joe steal fizzy lifting drink and float around, swimming in the bubbles. The music reminds me of Scharf’s scores for Jacques Cousteau. I wonder if this this was written solely by Scharf, rather than being an adaptation of Newley and Bricusse’s music.
Apart from Charlie, Verruca Salt is the only child with her own song. Just before she starts to sing, she demands her father buy her a golden goose. When she is told by Wonka “They’re not for sale” she kicks-off because Verruca is not used to being refused; she is a total brat! During filming the actress, Julie Dawn Cole, was asked over and over by Mel Stuart to be “nastier!”, and “even nastier!” Her song - I Want It Now – is reminiscent of My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music....but nastier! The Oopalumpa’s songs provide a link between all the children except Charlie. These songs are sung after each child has broken the rules and the Oompalumpa’s are asked by Wonka to deal the problem. The doleful rhymes tell of how the naughty, greedy, and brattish behaviour of children leads to their downfall.
The original ending of the screenplay had Wonka shouting “Yippee” when Charlie returned the everlasting gobstopper and agrees to take over the factory. However, Stuart felt this was a lame line and refused to end the film with his main character shouting “Yippee!” He tracked down Seltzer, who had gone on vacation, to come up with a better ending. Thinking on his feet, Seltzer came up with the wonderful line, “Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted. He lived happily ever after.” And, with that line, the music of Pure Imagination swelled, the choir joined in telling us that if we wanted to view Paradise all we had to do was look around us and we are convinced that the world would really a better place if we could only see it as Willy and Charlie do.
Every time I watch this film my understanding of the contribution the music made to the narrative grows. Even for a small child, the music, whether it be the songs of Newly and Bricusse, or the orchestral colours of Scharf, works to create a sensation of wonder, hope and confectionary. And those are three things I hope never to tire of.
Thank you to John Altman, who has provided me with some interesting anecdotes about Walter Scharf.
10 minute extract from 4K restoration of Willy Wonka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72vLikHT5OE
