Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) offers the experience of a lifetime to young Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) in classic family film
WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (Mel Stuart, 1971)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center amphitheater
144 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Sunday, December 4, 11:00 am, and Saturday, December 17, 4:00 pm, $6
Series continues through December 18
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
Based on a 1964 Roald Dahl novel, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a fanciful frolic through a children’s wonderland, filled with fear, trepidation, love, and lots of candy, both sweet and sour. Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum, in his only film appearance) lives with his dirt-poor family in a ramshackle room, where Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) can’t even get out of bed. But when goodhearted Charlie finds one of the golden tickets that will allow him to join a once-in-a-lifetime tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, Grandpa Joe is suddenly up and about, singing and dancing, and so will you be. Among the other kids with the golden tickets are the spoiled Veruca Salt (Julie Dawn Cole), the selfish Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson), the tube-loving Mike Teevee (Paris Themmen), and the rather sloppy Augustus Gloop (Michael Bollner). As they are led through this dreamland by the unpredictable Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder), they encounter chocolate rivers, bubble machines that make people float, and small Oompa Loompas who are quick to clean up any messes. The soundtrack of this thoroughly entertaining, charming family film includes “The Candy Man Can,” “(I’ve Got a) Golden Ticket,” “Pure Imagination,” and, of course, “Oompa Loompa, Doompa-Dee-Do.” The film was remade by Tim Burton in 2005 starring Johnny Depp as Wonka with mixed results, but you can catch the original at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center for a mere six bucks on December 4 and 17 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Family Films” series, which also includes a pair of other Dahl tales, James and the Giant Peach (Henry Selick, 1996) and Matilda (Danny DeVito, 1996).