"You can't shoot the book."
Director Mel Stuart
It all began with Roald Dahl's children's novel Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Stuart's daughter Madeline, 12, read the book three times and told her father she wanted it made into a movie. As a fantasy film appealing to adults and children it was instantly approved by Paramount and by close family friend producer David Wolper. Quaker Oats financed it but never made or sold Wonka Bars. Roald Dahl was flown to Hollywood 5 times from his home on the outskirts of London to rewrite the screenplay, adding and subtracting characters and incidents in his original story. Wonka was filmed in Munich, Germany's Storybook Capital, in October 1970 and released June 30, 1971.
Musical performer Joel Grey, star of Broadway's Cabaret, was first considered as Wonka until Gene Wilder walked into Stuart's office. Most of the Oompa Loompas spoke German and little or no English. Their songs were dubbed by a professional choir. Children were cast after a nationwide search, with Stuart's son and daughter cast in small parts.
Color photos of Wonka, his candy factory, and other places in town mingle with black and white rehearsal photos and an early poster of the movie. Readers follow cast and crew behind the scenes as problems are solved, scripts changed and the movie shot.
The 5-week filmshoot ended, postproduction began in Hollywood, and the set was struck to make way for the next production - Cabaret, starring Joel Grey. Contact was kept over the years. At a 30-year reunion, the impetus for writing this book, Cast and crew still living flew in from England, Germany and all over the United States to breakfast, sign autographs and celebrate. Marilyn Manson is one of Wonka's most famous fans. Wonka is also the top vote-getter as a rainy-day video to watch.
Last Rebel yell
James I Robertson, with civil war paintings by Mort Kunstler
Companion history to the movie
Based on one of a series of Civil War novels by James Shaara, the book covers 1861 to 1863. The Civil War didn't bring women's suffrage but it did bring us pairs of shoes, home delivered mail, paper money, standard time, canned goods, Santa Claus and most of all the end of slavery. At first the South outgunned and outnumbered the North as Stonewall Jackson and many other famous Southern heroes raided Union troops and took their guns. Robert E Lee left the United States Army after a glorious career so he could defend his state, Virginia, as was the custom in those days. Lee's Southern peers included master soldier General Stonewall Jackson on his horse Little Sorrel, originally intended as a gift for his wife. His Northern opponents in the story were Mainers Winfield S Hancock and Joshua L Chamberlain, who taught rhetoric at Bowdoin College.
Shots were fired on Fort Sumter, catching Union forces short on ammunition. The war was on! Gay evening balls with laughter and music were followed by somber departures with tears and promises to return the next morning. Southern troops marched captured Union locomotives in pieces towed by 40 horse teams through town to reassemble them on their own tracks while an adoring populace cheered. Troops marched through woods to fignt in open fields. Lee split his army to flank Union troops on each side, preventing their escape.
Then things changed. With Jackson newly dead from pneumonia, the Southern victory at Chancellorsville was tragic. Lee mourned for Jackson but could never replace him. Now the country could be saved and saved without slavery. General Ulysses S Grant, our 18th President, won battle after battle including the one at Gettysburg with its staggering Southern casualties. Lee knew then his chances were hopeless, his war unwinnable. Preparations started being made for Lee to surrender to Grant before losing more and more men, but that's later.
This book is magnificent both in text and picture. It's based on a novel but it contains enough historical fact to be perfect for laymen, movie fans and Civil War buffs alike by capturing an important era in United States history.
Reflections onscreen
Nick Clooney
20 movies starting with Saving private Ryan (1998) to Birth of a nation (1915) showing how each one changed things for better or worse. This book tells how each one produced the change, not just followed it. Changes were mostly in technique or content and a few changed social thought in subjects ranging from race to war to relationships to everything in between. Clooney shows how each of these movie changed us by telling how the movie was made, along with background information on its principals and the world they lived in, its history and that of the studio and the movie. Illustrated with scenes from the movie, Clooney illustrates his point with scenes from conversation and history revisited later.
Clooney, a writer and broadcaster in his own right, is the younger brother of Rosemary and Betty Clooney and the father of George. The Clooneys grew up across the street from and were best friends with black children whose artistic and literary talents, unlike theirs, didn't lead to careers, fame and fortune - only a film that was never made.
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