Wonka (2023)
Director: Paul King
Screenwriters: Simon Farnaby, Paul King
Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Olivia Colman, Matt Lucas, Matthew Baynton, Tom Davis, Hugh Grant

Willy Wonka is an enigma. In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), the original adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” we don’t learn much about him, other than his desire to find an heir to his candy empire, as well as the cruel delight he takes in teaching naughty children a lesson. Wonka is charming and a little unhinged, paranoid from all of the years he has spent locked away in his factory, making sure no one gets their hands on the secret to his out-of-this-world sweets. With a devilish smile and a playful yet devious twinkle in his eye, actor Gene Wilder infuses Wonka with dimension, but we never dig too deep. He’s a nut that we never quite crack, and he works as a character because of that. There’s a reason why the original novel is called “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” after all – at the end of the day, it’s Charlie’s journey. Wilder’s performance hints at the layers inside of Wonka that we don’t need to unpeel, but nevertheless know are there. Wonka, the spiritual prequel to the 1971 musical classic, helmed by Paddington director Paul King, does unpeel those layers, but what’s found underneath is a deeply disappointing origin story that lacks the magic and edge that the original (and even Tim Burton’s 2005 remake) has in spades. Touted as a fun-for-the-whole family Christmas classic in the making, Wonka simply doesn’t have enough sparkle to ever hope to achieve that distinction.

Despite its tagline, which insists we will find out how “Willy became Wonka,” Timothée Chalamet’s version of the famous candy maker and magician doesn’t actually become anything. He just kind of already is.

The film begins with Willy, bright-eyed and bursting with optimism, atop a ship mast, where he begins his “I Want” song, “Hatful of Dreams”. Willy arrives in an unnamed city, fresh off the boat, ready to share his chocolate with the world, as his mother (Sally Hawkins) always hoped he would. Willy is earnest and determined, living on nothing but a dream. But the Galeries Gourmet is not what Willy initially imagined it would be. Instead of spreading his creations, he faces opposition and sabotage from three greedy chocolate makers, including Arthur Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), who will soon become his arch-nemesis. Willy then gets tricked into indentured servitude because he cannot read and fails to read the small print on his contract with Mrs. Scrubitt, played by Olivia Colman doing her best over the top Madame Thénardier impression. Aided by Noodle (Calah Lane), a fellow indentured servant and orphan who becomes Willy’s assistant, as well as the rest of the workers, Wonka bids to outsmart the trio and earn the freedom of himself and his friends.

Timothée Chalamet might be the only saving grace in the film, contrary to early assumptions that he may have been miscast. At times he’s charming, funny and endearing, but his performance is constantly in flux and dependent on the material and direction he’s given. When his jokes don’t land, his performance falls flat, even though he is clearly committed to the bit. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to do an impression of Gene Wilder, but he also doesn’t make the character enough of his own to really stand out. This isn’t his fault; he isn’t given much to work with.

All of the obstacles Willy encounters are external. Whether it’s Mrs. Scrubitt’s dishonest business practices, the antics of the greedy chocolatiers, or Hugh Grant’s Oompa-Loompa hijinks, the plot is always happening to Willy. He is almost entirely a reactionary character, and this is a problem in a movie that is supposed to be an origin story, the story of how he became who he is. It would have been nice if he actively participated in the narrative…

Willy’s desire to share his inventions with the world just as his mother hoped is sweet and admirable, but it simply isn’t enough to drive what we see. The writers, King and Paddington 2 co-writer Simon Farnaby (who also appears in Wonka as Basil), were backed into a corner considering Willy Wonka is a recluse by the time we meet him in the original movie. Telling that story would certainly be more interesting, but not very uplifting, so the filmmakers sidestep it entirely. As a result, there doesn’t seem to be any connection between Chalamet’s Wonka and Wilder’s.

Demystifying a character that works the best when we don’t know everything about him is a non-starter (as proven in Star Wars spin-off Solo), but the filmmakers didn’t give much thought to the supporting characters either. Lane and Chalamet work well together, and their friendship is a bright spot in the movie, but most of the supporting characters are so thinly drawn they barely register as real people. As for Hugh Grant’s Lofty, an Oompa Loompa who has been stealing Willy’s candy because he was excommunicated from Oompa Land until he can get back all of the chocolate that Willy stole, he’s surprisingly in very little of the film. The motion capture is jarring and unconvincing, but at least Grant’s contempt for the role, which he has expressed in several recent interviews, doesn’t show on screen.

Wonka, like the original film adaptation, is a musical, but not a very good one. The songs, written by Neil Hannon, King, Farnaby, and Joby Talbot, are unremarkable and lack passion, which is a shame considering Hannon’s exceptional work with The Divine Comedy. The songs in Wonka, especially Willy’s “Hatful of Dreams,” pale in comparison to those written by Howard Ashman, the songwriting genius behind the iconic tunes of The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). By comparison, “Hatful of Dreams” lacks interiority or reflection. Perhaps the biggest faux pas in this regard is how Willy’s desire to sell chocolates in the hopes of reconnecting with the spirit of his late mother is barely mentioned. Songs in musicals should, in theory, take place when characters are so full of emotion that words no longer feel enough. And then, they must dance when singing doesn’t feel enough. But nothing drives the songs in this movie and they don’t feel needed. They are boring and directionless. Chalamet’s voice is fine, if a little weak and thin in places, but it’s worth noting that his best performance is when he sings “Pure Imagination”, a song not originally written for this film.

Wonka also strips away any of the melancholy or dark comedy found both in the 1971 movie and Roald Dahl’s overall work. The 1971 film feels a lot like “Alice in Wonderland” in that it is a dreamlike and slightly menacing descent into a magical world, but Wonka smooths all those edges out. As a result, the movie is sickly sweet and above all, nice. Which is ironic, because while the filmmakers were busy adding uplifting lyrics to “Pure Imagination” and simplifying the orchestrations, themes, and social commentaries of the 1971 film, they also made time to make several offensive and outdated fat jokes, aimed at Keegan Michael Key’s Chief of Police, who is dressed in a ridiculous fat suit and gets fatter and fatter the more he indulges in the sweets the greedy chocolate makers use to bribe him with. Using fatness as a shorthand for gluttony and greed, and having an actor who is not fat perform fatness, is hurtful and mean-spirited. It’s hard to believe such an antiquated trope is included in a film made in 2023 – especially one made about the wonderful taste of sweet treats – and it sours the viewing experience. For all of the niceness this movie tries desperately to exude, it makes sure to keep one of the only things from the original film that actually needed updating.

If Wonka is trying to say something, it’s hard to know what that something is. The film plays with themes of oppression, poverty, and greed, but doesn’t do much with them. It would be a losing battle to assume that Western filmmaking would trust its young audience enough to sprinkle in some adult themes, but it is equally weird to mention them in passing and not engage with them. Believing in your dreams and sharing those dreams with others should feel like magic, but the film doesn’t allow us to know these characters enough to genuinely care about them or their dreams.

The sets also leave something to be desired. When Wonka first unveils his factory in the original film, it’s a technicolor dream, calling to mind the reveal of the land of Oz in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. It is bright and colorful and a little surreal. Wonka feels like a step down in comparison, and the filmmakers’ decision to set a good chunk of the film in the Galeries Gourtmet makes the world of Wonka feel like it’s just floating in space surrounded by nothing. It is small and claustrophobic.

Prequels bait us with the promise that we will get to see some of our most beloved characters become the people we love and remember from our childhoods. In Wonka, Willy may be younger and brighter and less mad than he will soon become, but if you are counting on the film to show you how that happens, you will be very disappointed. Instead, Wonka is a barely passable movie musical that is so sugary it ends up choking on its own sweetness.

Score: 12/24

Recommended for you: ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ (1971) Earned a Spot in Joseph Wade’s 10 Best Films of All Time

The year is 1995, and the child is me.

I can never verify how much of the above tale happened, or which parts of it I have embellished over the years, but the story is true. I specifically remember being told that the flower Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka drinks from and then takes a bite out of wasn’t real food, and I consequently went through the thought process of wondering what else in the film wasn’t real and who made all of those things. I can’t remember if prior to that moment I thought everything in films was a historical document of a true story, or whether I had any thoughts about them at all, but I know that watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was my light-bulb moment, my transition from being a baby into being a child, my moment of consciousness. 

The wonderment I found that day has been one of the most lasting and rewarding aspects of my three-plus decades on this planet. Each time I feel like my flame for cinema has been extinguished (by life, by society, by corporatisation, by existential threats to the theatrical experience, by politics), it has been sparked back into life by miraculous feat of cinematic artistry after miraculous feat of cinematic artistry. As I’ve grown and learned and progressed, I have been inspired, have been nurtured, and have been guided by film. 

With so many life-shaping, existential experiences to recall, and so many lessons learned and viewpoints shaped by this wondrous moving picture art form, I find myself in the same place I began: wide-eyed and cross-legged, jaw agape, entirely present. 

In this moment of absolute consciousness, the following ten films are what I have long deliberated to be the best of all time. These films are form-shaping, movement-defining, genre-topping pieces, each from remarkable filmmakers who were able to capture lightning in a bottle by making something greatly artistic and intellectually rewarding, something emotionally and contextually resonant. These films challenged convention, rewrote popular thought, established rules and in most cases broke them, and together they are the thousands of films I have experienced, the entire historical context of the industry I have studied in great depth, the more-than a quarter of a century of consciousness I have dedicated to the form. These are the 10 Best Films of All Time by me, Joseph Wade.

Follow me on X (Twitter – @JoeTFM

10. Casablanca (1942)

Casablanca Review

The modern Hollywood blockbuster is a monumental part of the cinema experience, and one of the reasons you’re reading this article and I’m writing it. Some of the classics that have lit up the big screen and revolutionised the form are Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, and The Dark Knight. While Buster Keaton’s timeless action-comedy The General (1926) has had perhaps the most direct influence of any film in history regarding contemporary studio filmmaking – many of its scenes still borrowed from and replicated to this day, its train scene being paid homage to in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One in 2023 – it is Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca that can be found most prominently across many modern thrillers, actioners, and superhero movies.

Curtiz’s romantic drama is perhaps the most overlooked film of all time regarding the size of its influence on modern filmmaking. There are sequences, set in the markets of Casablanca, that are almost directly copied in Star Wars and the Indiana Jones movies, and the film’s themes of good, evil, and the people in between being forced to choose a side, is a foundational aspect of every successful modern studio blockbuster. While the romantic themes of Casablanca may be lost in most mainstream tentpole releases in the 2020s – a sorry loss that we should fight to get back – the foundational parts of its script, and particularly the way it is presented, shot, and constructed in the edit, are ultra modern and ever-present in our current day cinema. You can watch Casablanca more than eighty years after its release and experience the same pacing as modern success stories like Top Gun: Maverick, which given the releases of the time and the size of the equipment used to film and edit them, is a remarkable achievement. 

Beyond the technical achievements and revolutionary ideas that caused its influence to be so long lasting, Casablanca is a powerful and emotive film. Humphrey Bogart soars to new career heights as a romantic leading man, Rick Blaine, the owner of Rick’s, a jazz bar in the titular Moroccan city of Casablanca. To think that he wasn’t thought charismatic enough to be a romantic lead during this era is remarkable in retrospect, but this performance is one that corrected that mistake and laid the foundations for one of the great romantic careers in Hollywood history. His character is reunited with an old flame, Ilsa Lund (played with all the natural fierceness that Ingrid Bergman imprinted onto every single one of her characters – she is arguably an even more powerful screen presence than Bogart), and the pair accidentally set light to old feelings. As it’s World War II, the Nazi forces of North Africa are an ever present threat to the two leads and their romance as well as the way of life of the entire cast of supporting characters. The USA was just entering the 2nd World War during the events of Casablanca, and the nation is romantically presented as a distant beacon of hope in the film; the promise land that the Statue of Liberty so gloriously signified to the millions of refugees and immigrants that made their way to the shores of New York and beyond at that time. 

This film features a lot of what we’ve all grown to love about the golden era of Hollywood, and even the biggest movies of today, but it is unique for the very reasons that it remains memorable and iconic so many decades later. It is tragic with a small glimmer of hope, Hays Code era romantic but not asinine, and features two of the most legendary screen actors of all time in all of their transatlantic accented best. No matter what you’ve heard of Bogart and Bergman, they’re all that and then some. Better still, they’re presented in that sumptuous black and white of the era, through risk-taking and modern cinematographic techniques, through the astonishingly detailed set design that you can’t help but to marvel at, and scored to perfection in a composition by Max Steiner that could very well be included on a very short list of movie scores to have helped build the foundations of Warner Bros. 

Casablanca is the archetypal Hollywood movie, the very best of a list of classics that includes Gone with the Wind and It’s a Wonderful Life. It is everything that the myth of Hollywood represents, a pristine example of cinema that captured the anxieties and the hope of its time like few other films managed to do, and told it in such a universally appreciated way that we can still feel forced to the edge of our seats and moved to tears in an entirely new century. Even with our modern understanding of the United States having been shifted to better understand non-white perspectives of its past, as well as the global perspectives of its present, Casablanca’s romanticised outlook on its nation, war, hope, and love, ensure it remains a culturally significant and artistically monumental Hollywood movie release, a shining light of the cinematic form.

9. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Singin’ in the Rain is the epitome of Golden Era Hollywood: vast soundstages dressed beautifully by experts in the field, lit with all the glow of the sun; once in a lifetime performers offering timeless qualities that you just don’t see anymore; a self-reflective narrative that pokes fun at the studio system; a happy time at the movies that keeps the conflict manageable and the highs universal, so even the little ones can enjoy themselves. This is Hollywood cinema; romance, music, colour and beauty, projected for all to see. 

The film stars Gene Kelly in the midst of his decade of superstardom. He’s a unique talent – a ballet dancer with movie star good looks, the kind of smile that could steal a nation of hearts – and the only person who could take a combination of songs discarded from other productions and make it into something irreplaceable within the annals of cinema history. He is the anchor around which everything floats, the fulcrum of the entire movie, the superstar upon whose back this entire era seemed to rest. Watching the Gene Kelly of the 1940s or 50s in the 2020s will have the same effect it did seventy years prior: the magic will simply pour out of the screen, drowning the noise of your every day and lighting up your endorphins time and time again.

In Singin’ in the Rain, Kelly plays a silent era film star whose career is about to meet an unfortunate end due to the advent of sound. He meets Debbie Reynolds’ party performer with a voice of gold in a chance meeting and the two court for the duration of the film’s runtime, her rise to relative superstardom coming as fast as Kelly’s relative fall from it. It’s all singing and dancing and pursuing the one thing you’ve been told you’re good at just because you believe it might one day work out for you; a Hollywood story about Hollywood that inspired youngest-ever Best Director Oscar winner Damien Chazelle on La La Land and Babylon; a type of self-aware American Dream narrative that doesn’t yet seem poisoned by the lost wars, anxieties and terror of the decades to come. 

Perhaps best of all, it is so fist-clenchingly uplifting. You truly feel the ecstasy of each career-orientated achievement just as the characters do. The music is, of course, vital to achieving this, and so far as original soundtracks go there are few (if any) better. From “Good Morning” to the titular track “Singin’ in the Rain”, this film is as loaded with classic songs as the best films of the era, as any era that followed, an often imitated but never duplicated success story.

As an adult, there are few viewing experiences that can show you something new, or fresh, or better than before, but witnessing Gene Kelly at the height of his powers is one of those experiences. His presence in Singin’ in the Rain is the realisation of all he brought to cinema in the ultra modern On the Town (1949) and the classic stage ballet on film, An American in Paris (1951). He isn’t the only glowing aspect of this cinematic marvel, but he is breathtaking, astounding, simply incomparable. Unmissable. 

Singin’ in the Rain was made in-part in tribute to the classics of the early Hollywood musicals, such as those by Fred Astaire (Top Hat, Swing Time), and continues to serve as inspiration for a wide variety of films to this day, from the entire plot being the basis of Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) to the “I’m Just Ken” musical segment from Barbie (2023). But, as an artefact of Hollywood at its most sumptuous, timeless and expansive, it is perhaps even more special; arguably the greatest Hollywood studio movie of all time.

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Gene Kelly

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Director: Mel Stuart
Screenwriter: Roald Dahl
Starring: Gene Wilder, Peter Ostrum, Jack Albertson, Julie Dawn Cole, Paris Themmen, Denise Nickerson, Michael Bollner, Roy Kinnear, Nora Denney, Leonard Stone, Ursula Reit, Gunter Meisner

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is the rare non-Disney film that seems to have been a part of almost everyone’s childhoods. More than just a piece of family entertainment, it has become an institution – a staple of youth cinema and a pop-culture treasure trove echoed throughout music, film and television since its release 50 years ago.

Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) lives squarely on the poverty line, sharing a small, dilapidated house with his hard-working mother and four bedridden grandparents. Living off a diet of cabbage-water soup, a simple loaf of bread is a luxury. The one glimmer of hope for Charlie arrives in the form of a competition courtesy of world-renowned chocolatier and recluse, Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder). Wonka will finally open the gates and permit five entrants to see the inner workings of his factory, and all they have to do is find one of five golden tickets hidden within the millions of Wonka Bars being shipped around the globe. As one spoiled child after another finds their golden ticket, things look bleaker than ever for poor Charlie, until a stroke of luck puts that final ticket in his hands, inviting him to a world of pure imagination.

Adapted by Roald Dahl from his own book, with an uncredited shine and polish from David Seltzer, there has perhaps never been a better blend of adult and child entertainment in live-action film – cheeky, Python-esque moments of humour here, other moments of pure, unadulterated wonder there.

For the first 45 minutes, we are teased and titillated for what lies in store. School classes are instantly dismissed upon announcement of the competition. Breaking news reports reveal the winners who will gain entry to Wonka’s marvellous and mysterious factory. Scientists build algorithmic computers to help find the lucky chocolate bars containing the golden tickets. It’s a wonderfully ridiculous notion that the world would stop spinning for a chocolate factory, but it’s one that you totally buy into by the time Charlie finds that last fortuitous ticket.

All that build-up pays off.

Iconic though almost every character has become, this is undoubtedly Gene Wilder’s film. From the moment he steps onto the screen, you cannot take your eyes off him. As Wilder had reportedly intended, his opening pratfall-turned-summersault leaves you guessing what twists and tricks ol’ Wonka has up his sleeve next. Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers were initially eyed for the role, but in their hands Wonka may have felt more like a larger-than-life character. With his sparkling blue eyes and untameable hair, Wilder is Wonka, at once disarmingly charming and full of sarcastic wit, but unpredictable in more ways than either we, or Charlie and company, would ever expect. He may be the very definition of eccentric, but behind it all is a warmth that keeps you following closely behind, even when uncertain danger lurks around the corner.

One of the film’s greatest and potentially most polarising qualities is also one of the reasons it has endured: it’s not afraid to get weird, and at times even scary. As sweet as it can be, Stuart’s film also has considerable bite. Who could forget Slugworth, the spy who always seems to be peering in on each of the golden ticket winners, or the infamous boat ride from hell designed solely to traumatise the characters and audience alike?

In a film full of candy, everything is sugar-coated but the danger. As in many of his stories, Dahl does not tolerate bad behaviour, and Willy Wonka serves as another cautionary tale for developing minds and personalities. As the tour progresses, the number of attending children is whittled down, like a slasher film for preteens. On separate occasions the kids almost drown, fill with enough juice to burst their bodies, narrowly escape being sliced up by a giant fan, plummet towards the factory incinerator, and, in one case, are shrunken down to the size of an action figure. And how does everyone react? The parents, of course, are hysterical. Wonka, on the other hand, dismisses them with a pithy remark and a “they get what they deserve” attitude. More than just a moralistic story for children, these lessons extend to the parents too – no one wants a Veruca Salt in the family, after all.

And then there’s Charlie. Charlie, who is everything these other children are not – quiet, thoughtful, generous and understanding – asking for no attention while the others demand it. Of course, he is ultimately rewarded for his inherent goodness, and in that moment it is as though Wonka is permitted to share in the audience’s joy, as happy as we are to see the underdog win out in the end.

Seltzer’s rewrite turned the story into a musical, which was one change too many for Dahl who baulked at the idea and stepped away from the production. Watching the film now, it seems unthinkable to remove the songs. Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s musical numbers are every bit as important as Helen Colvig’s iconic costumes or Harper Goff’s rainbow-splashed production design. The purehearted optimism of “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket”; those first twinkling notes of “Pure Imagination”; the ever-adapting earworm that is the Oompa Loompa song – without them, the film would be robbed of a special kind of magic.

50 years on from its release, it may seem easy to poke fun at Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory – it has been parodied and memed to death by American television and the internet alike. It’s the kind of good humour that comes around with the most beloved properties – the ones that were experienced early in a lifetime and have only had their appreciation grow as the years go by.

There is no doubt that Willy Wonka, Charlie and their fellow characters will continue to touch hearts and minds for years to come. “Pure imagination”, indeed.

22/24

Written by Scott Z. Walkinshaw

You can support Scott Walkinshaw in the following places:

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Gene Wilder played Willy Wonka in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

The film is to be directed by Paul King, who is best known for directing the recent live-action Paddington movies, both of which proved to be hits critically and commercially. Wonka will see King re-team with his Paddington producer David Heyman, who has produced a range of films including the Harry Potter franchise.

Not much is known about the story aside from that the film will focus on a younger Willy Wonka before he becomes owner of the famous chocolate factory. The film will therefore not be directly based on a specific Roald Dahl novel, as opposed to Willy Wonka’s previous screen appearances.

The script was co-written by King and Simon Farnaby, based on a draft by Simon Rich (An American Pickle). 

It is currently unknown who will play the role of the titular character. Previous incarnations have seen Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp portray the extravagant chocolatier. A source for Collider has said that Warner Bros. are currently eyeing either Tom Holland or Timothée Chalamet, with the hopes of creating a franchise. However, this is not confirmed.

Holland is best known for his role as Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the third instalment due to release in December 2021. Outside of that, fans can expect to see plenty more of the actor this year as he has three additional films schedule to release. First is the much delayed Chaos Walking from director Doug Liman (Swingers; The Bourne Identity). The sci-fi film will see Holland star opposite Daisy Ridley (Star Wars) and was originally intended to release in March of 2019. The film will finally hit cinemas in early March 2021. Shortly after comes the crime drama Cherry, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo (Avengers: Endgame), an Apple TV exclusive due to release in late March. Finally, Holland will play Nathan Drake in the video game based movie, Uncharted.

As Holland dominates the world of blockbusters, Chalamet has been appearing in more awards friendly films. Chalamet received an Oscar nomination for his role as Elio in Call Me By Your Name. He has also appeared in many critically successful indie films, like Greta Gerwig‘s Lady Bird and 2019 novel adaptation Little Women. As for upcoming projects, Chalamet will appear in Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch, Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up and will play music legend Bob Dylan in James Mangold‘s Going Electric. In addition to these awards centric films, the upcoming Dune remake will see the actor stepping foot into blockbuster territory, seeming to indicate that Wonka is not outside the realm of possibility.

While neither actor has expressed public interest in Wonka, both would seem like a good fit for the role if Warner Bros. do wish to spawn sequels due to their star power.

The film is currently scheduled to film in September, though this could change depending on permits, laws and licenses imposed by the pandemic.

Young Frankenstein (1974)
Director: Mel Brooks
Screenwriters: Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder
Starring:  Gene Wilder, Teri Garr, Cloris Leachmann, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Gene Hackman

While there have been a fair share of horror spoofs over the years, it is a somewhat mixed bag in terms of genuine laugh out loud takes that stand separate from what they are satirising – for every Shaun Of The Dead, there is a Scary Movie. Mel Brooks, in 1974, with the assistance of the late Gene Wilder, created a horror comedy for the ages in Young Frankenstein. The film takes influence from Mary Shelley’s original work “Frankenstein”, and more frequent and obvious inspiration from the numerous film adaptations released in the 1930s and 40s. The film was a critical and commercial hit, and even got Brooks and Wilder nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Mel Brooks has since stated that he thinks it’s the best of the films he has directed, which is high praise considering that his catalogue also includes The Producers (1967), Blazing Saddles (1974), Spaceballs (1987) and Robin Hood: Men In Tights (1993), and while he concedes it may not be his funniest, he may just be right about it being at the very top of his legendary filmography.

Young Frankenstein is often cited as one of the funniest films from the past 50 years, with Empire placing it 19^th in their list of the 50 Funniest Films of All Time and Bravo placing it at number 56 on their equivalent list. Adam Smith’s 2006 retrospective on the film was a glowing one: “Young Frankenstein is a marvelously crafted, beautifully shot comedic homage to James Whale’s 1931 classic, with the sheer craft of the production and performances contrasting brilliantly with the low-down and dirty obviousness of many of the gags”. This review acknowledged the film to be one of Brooks’ finest spoofs with subsequent efforts such as High Anxiety and The History of The World Part 1 struggling to match its tone and runaway success. It is remarkable that Brooks managed to release two of his finest directorial efforts in the same year, 1974, releasing Young Frankenstein on the back of the hugely successful Blazing Saddles.

Brooks cleverly employed many tropes from the 1930s films in Young Frankenstein, with the use of scene transitions and in-film credits, with fades to black and wipes employed throughout. Filming in black and white also helped to evoke the atmosphere of the much earlier, classic monster films. While Young Frankenstein is often laugh out loud hilarious, it is the reverence for its source material that helps elevate it above other horror spoofs that can feel laboured. Brooks and Wilder are both clearly fans of the horror genre and do justice to their influences whilst also creating something that can be enjoyed by those unfamiliar with what exactly their work is paying homage to, much as Edgar Wright managed to achieve with Shaun Of The Dead.

The cast are one of the clear highlights of this film, with Gene Wilder superb as this iteration’s mad scientist, the grandson of the original Frankenstein. He brings his trademark brand of quirkiness and physical comedy, and once again proves a valuable asset to Brooks following acclaimed collaborations on Blazing Saddles and The Producers. There is some great support for Wilder from Peter Boyle as The Monster, who is so convincing it’s like he came from the 1930s. Additionally Marty Feldman as Igor is clearly having fun, and the two leading ladies Cloris Leachman and American Graffiti star Teri Garr offer fine contrasts and plenty of comedic moments. There is also a hilarious brief cameo from an almost unrecognisable Gene Hackman in a scene with The Monster.

There is one scene in which Frankenstein and The Monster sing “Puttin’ On the Ritz”, which continues to stand out as one of Young Frankenstein’s most fun moments, the scene itself harking back to the collaboration of Wilder and Brooks on The Producers seven years earlier. It may be a far cry from traditional horror cinema, but it’s a moment that suits the whimsical tone of Brooks’ work, and has since become something of a signature trademark.

Young Frankenstein is worth seeking out for fans of vintage horror and Mel Brooks comedies. It stands apart as a great film in its own right, separate from its influences, striking a near perfect balance between homage and send up. Often proving hilarious with some superb performances and a witty script, this comedy still holds up close to 50 years removed from its release, and remains a fantastic showcase for Brooks’ unique brand of humour. A fine companion piece to Brooks’ Western send up Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein is also a first indicator of Gene Wilder’s talents away from the camera ahead of his directorial debut The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother released the following year.

20/24

In this list, the latest in The Film Magazine’s 5 of the Best Character Introductions series, I’ll be offering my selections for the 5 best character introductions in movie history…

1. Rufus T. Firefly

Duck Soup (1933)

The plot of the Marx Brothers’ movies are consistently bizarre but only really serve as the vehicle for slapstick antics or devastating jabs and insults. All their cinematic efforts are distinctly “Marxist” but the brothers still manage to keep their films fresh. In Duck Soup, this approach resulted in one of cinema’s greatest ever entrances…

The wealthy and influential Mrs Teasdale agrees to help out the tiny nation of Freedonia with her inexhaustible funds, but only on the condition that Statesman Rufus T. Firefly is appointed as the new leader. His reception is a great affair with ambassadors and representatives from all over the world, and excited chatter paints the image of a noble man of decorum and decency. Ballerina flower girls litter his intended path with petals and decorated soldiers draw their swords to form a glorious steely arch to the thunderous notes of the Freedonia National Anthem… but his “punctual” excellency doesn’t turn up.

Only after the third reprise of “Hail, Hail Freedonia” does Rufus (Groucho Marx) leap out of bed in a baggy, crumpled suit and sneaks into the reception via a conveniently placed fireman’s pole – drawing his cigar alongside the solidiers after his query of “Are you expecting someone?”

It’s such a silly joke with way too much effort put forward to land it, but the timing is perfect. It sets the tone for a 68-minute long scathing political satire and solidifies Groucho’s place as the head of the troupe and as cinema’s greatest and most beloved bastard – his ridicule of pomp and circumstance is often imitated but never bested.

2. Ebeneezer Scrooge

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

When Charles Dickens’ festive novel’s most memorable adaption stars furry Muppet creatures, it’s certainly a weird universe we live in. As strange as it sounds, it’s absolutely true: The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of the most popular Christmas movies and greatest book adaptions of all time.

Much of the film’s success can be owed to Michael Caine’s stellar performance as the main character Ebeneezer Scrooge, who receives one of The Muppets’ most memorable musical numbers as his introduction. The scene is set with a sweeping shot of a snowy Victorian London and Charles Dickens himself (well, in the incarnation of Great Gonzo) begins the story with lines straight from his novel:

“The Marley(‘s) were dead to begin with”

Spines now tingled, pangs of anxiety are induced within the audience as Dickens announces Scrooge’s imminent arrival:

“You will meet him as he comes round that corner.”
“Where?”
“There?”
“When?”
“Now!”

Ebeneezer Scrooge appears cloaked in darkness and ice…. holy crap!

With this being a Muppet flick, the resulting number “Scrooge” is full of gags and fourth wall breaks; typical of Jim Henson’s patented light entertainment. The song is incredibly catchy and the most memorable from the whole movie, but this is more than a mere diss track. Heavy hitting lyrics combine with Scrooge’s arrogant shoves past the Muppet cavalcade to establishe the man as a cold, greedy and utterly irredeemable character. Finished off with Caine’s characteristic hard stare, Scrooge chills the blood.

The genius of pairing Caine’s straight performance with Muppet madness creates an adaption which boasts the most believable transformation of literature’s most famous miser to a genial grandfather figure. For certain generations, Caine will forever be immortalised by his pimp walk in the snow.

Recommended for you: The Muppets Movies Ranked

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, made in 1971 and directed by Mel Stuart, feels like an afternoon film to watch with the family. It also indicated, from the title, that this is Willy Wonka’s story but in fact it is Charlie Bucket’s. In Tim Burton’s imagining of the story, the title is the original, but the movie feels the opposite as it’s more about Wonka than it is about Charlie. The story, which is the same in both films, is about an eccentric chocolate maker who had closed his factory for years after a spy tried to get in and steal his world famous chocolate recipes, but who one day announced that he’d be opening his doors to just 5 people lucky enough to find the 5 golden tickets hidden inside the packaging of his world famous chocolate bars. The winners are from Europe and America, four of whom are awful and one who is good. They are taken on a tour of the factory and one by one fall foul, with some of them reaching fates as severe as disfigurement as a result of not listening to Wonka’s simple but strict rules. The only one to (mostly) obey these rules is Charlie Bucket who is rewarded with Wonka’s factory by the man himself, who was actually holding the competition in order to find an heir to his life’s work. He invites Charlie and his family to live in the factory and everyone lives happily ever after.

The 1971 classic, as it is indeed a classic, follows this story roughly to a tee. The film is also a musical but actually only has a few songs, most of which are sung by the mysterious Oompa Loompas, the workers in the factory. It is in Gene Wilder’s performance as Willy Wonka that the film truly excels. In my opinion, his performance is simply perfect. As a comedic actor, he portrays the humerous moments with a sinister edge; exactly what the role calls for. The cast of children and parents are good, but don’t leave a lasting effect, meaning that once they meet their demise, they are easy to forget. You tend to remember how they disappeared, each in a more disastrous way, which brings focus to the story and the plight of its wonderful protagonists. The sinister factor in these disappearances are made worse when you realise that you never see the children at the end – I guess we were all too distracted by the Great Glass Elevator to care! A particular favourite scene of mine that questions the sanity of the factory owner is the trip on the Wonkatania boat through the tunnel. The strange images and singing from Wilder makes you think twice about the film being for children. In fact, having a film about children being mutilated or put in near-death situations could be seen as questionable, but with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, this uneasy feeling is subdued by music and different ways you can ingest candy. Unfortunately, the film does show its age and arguably feels somewhat dated. The typical 70’s family film feel is there but, as an adaptation, it lacks depth past Wonka’s exciting character.

Tim Burton’s version of Road Dahl’s beloved classic, made in 2005, was rather more in-keeping with the overarching and intertwining stories. For example, Veruca Salt, the little brat from London, does in fact end up in the nut room, unlike in the 70’s films where she is deemed a ‘bad egg’ in the chocolate egg room. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is also a brighter and more colourful film, though it still manages to show the darker side of the story. The Oompa Loompas sing their songs, but the characters point out that the songs sound rehearsed, as if they predicted these events would happen. It feels as if Willy Wonka planned the demise of the children, setting them up. He knows Augustus is greedy so he would be first to go. He knows that Violet could not resist new gum, that Veruca is spoiled and would demand something impossible, and he knows that Mike is just a mean child who would try anything related to technology. This last point is thin but also valid: the dark side and purpose to the Willy Wonka character is better played out in the Tim Burton film, but there are still several aspects of the film that don’t quite fit together. I’m referencing the added storyline about Wonka’s past, his difficult relationship with his strict father, a dentist, who despises candy and chocolate as it rots teeth. His father never agreed with what his son wanted to become, a chocolate maker.

The question of where the factory is in the world both infuriates and puzzles me – all of the inhabitants are obviously British, they even dress like they’re British. It might just be me who thinks this, but the British have a somewhat ‘down to Earth way of dressing’ that is slightly more reserved than those in other nations: jumpers, tattered coats and plain colours. So, they’re all British, but they have American words coming out of their mouths, like ‘candy’ and ‘dollars’. It’s not ‘candy’ it’s ‘chocolate’! I don’t understand why Tim Burton did this. Is this film set in an alternative future where America invaded the UK? Or is the factory and the town actually in the USA? It’s not quite clear.

Apart from the shiny and new look to Tim Burton’s film, the film does have an excellent cast. All the children play their parts to a high standard, as do the well-matched parents. Of course, Charlie Bucket is sickly sweet and Grandpa Joe is an enthusiastic old man, but there is one role I didn’t take to and he really was a deal breaker… Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka. He was a crazy character and no doubt played on the dark side of the story very well, but he came across as simply too weird and I could not empathise with him at all. Having detached himself from his father, Wonka seems to be a child in an adult body, and with added social issues. He plays games, says random things and does not want to be touched by any of the children or their parents.

I’ve read somewhere on a list of childhood films that the author believed Gene Wilder’s Wonka looked and acted like a serial killer and you wouldn’t leave your children alone with him. In my opinion, Johnny Depp’s Wonka had the serial killer tendencies and should in no way have be allowed to see the light of day. Wilder’s Wonka was how I imagined a Roald Dahl character to be. Wonka has a heart and is eccentric but he has a sinister side, like all Dahl creations.

Verdict: If the story hinges on pure loyalty to the original books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would win this battle. Added Wonka father issues aside, the characters, story, mishaps, and even the songs fall in line with Roald Dahl’s story – it feels like the pages of the book have come to life. But, if this was about the film and just Wonka himself, Gene Wilder and his orange-faced Oompa-Loompas would win. Nostalgia is a powerful thing and can persuade people’s choices. The winner of this round is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Written by Katherine Hogan