Roald Dahl is known for his witty, charming, and immensely creative novels for children, but his name is also familiar to those who saw and loved the classic film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, released in 1971 and starring Gene Wilder. It was nominated for numerous awards and was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. Given these accolades, one would assume Dahl was pleased with the film; however, he despised it so much that he refused to grant film rights for Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator because he feared his novel would be treated improperly again. What were Dahl’s concerns, and why did he feel so strongly?
First, Dahl wrote the first screenplay but seemed to have very little say in major changes made to it. One major example was when director Mel Stuart decided to change the name of the film to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory rather than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Dahl objected to the bratty children, the songs, the psychedelic boat-ride scene, the fizzy drink and burping scene, and the transformation of Slugworth, a minor character in the book, into a prominent spy and villain.
He was particularly displeased about the casting of Wilder. His biographer and friend Donald Sturrock wrote, “He had serious reservations about Gene Wilder's performance as Wonka, which he thought 'pretentious' and insufficiently 'gay [in the old-fashioned sense of the word] and bouncy'”; he had wanted Peter Sellers or Spike Milligan to play Wonka. Sturrock told Yahoo!, "I think he felt Wonka was a very British eccentric. Gene Wilder was rather too soft... His voice is very light and he's got that rather cherubic, sweet face. I think [Roald] felt…there was something wrong with [Wonka's] soul in the movie--it just wasn't how he imagined the lines being spoken."
Liz Attenborough, trustee of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Buckinghamshire, explained, "He thought it placed too much emphasis on Willy Wonka and not enough on Charlie. For him the book was about Charlie." Dahl’s second wife added that Hollywood “always [wants] to change a book’s storyline. What makes Hollywood think children want the endings changed for a film, when they accept it in a book?”
Dahl called the film “crummy,” Wilder “pretentious,” and Stuart a director with “no talent or flair.” Only late in life began to tolerate--but not like--the film, as Sturrock wrote.
