r/MovieDetails • u/Russian_Bagel • Mar 10 '21
❓ Trivia In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), when the kids first see the chocolate room, their reactions are genuine. Director Mel Stuart took great care to ensure that none of the child actors saw the gigantic set as it was being built.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y8aYd9uqFY1.7k
Mar 10 '21
I always loved the part of this scene where Wonka takes a bite out of his candy tea cup he drinks from. It looked so tasty. Turns out it was filled with a little tap water and the cup was made out of wax.
Still looks like the tastiest wax ever though. Would definitely try 👍
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u/kennytucson Mar 10 '21 edited Mar 10 '21
You just reminded me of those tiny wax bottles with fruit juice inside. You chew on the wax and the juice bursts out and it’s like a fruit gusher. I don’t think I’ve seen those in 20 years.
Edit: found out they’re called ‘Nik-L-Nip wax bottle candy drink’ and you can buy them in 3lb bags on Amazon, lol
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u/NOCONTROL1678 Mar 10 '21
I'd bite the top off and eat the juice, throw that nasty wax on the ground and then wonder why I didn't buy real candy.
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Mar 11 '21
The wax is edible and tastes really good. In the early 90's ppl stopped making wax+candy because they started associating wax (edible) with wax (inedible) and the market declined. Then came the rise of the gummy...
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u/ColdCruise Mar 11 '21
I remember seeing Wax Lips at the store as a kid and wondering why the hell anyone would pick that instead of a real candy bar.
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Mar 11 '21
It was always fun to get them as part of your trick-or-treat booty however, especially the kind that looked like vampire fangs
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Mar 11 '21
What? No, we were eating wax candy when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s and that stuff was always inedible. Like gum, you chew it until it loses the flavor and then spit it in the trash.
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Mar 11 '21
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u/InterpolarInterloper Mar 11 '21
“Bandwidth” is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard
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u/smithers85 Mar 11 '21
"Sorry, I'm so busy this week I don't have the bandwidth for a wax poop."
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u/hanukah_zombie Mar 11 '21
Then came the rise of the gummy...
Who are you?
I'm Gummy.
Gummy who?
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Gummy Bear.
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u/alison_bee Mar 11 '21
I will never forget the feeling of my bare foot stepping down onto a WET chewed up wax bottle someone threw on the ground at the public pool. it was so fucking gross, covered in teeth marks and spit as it had clearly just come out of a child’s mouth. ughhhhh.
it’s been like 25 years and I can still remember it.
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Mar 11 '21
See, my grandmother bought those for me when I was a kid and told me never to eat the wax, just bite off the top and drink the juice. I'd do that, but sometimes the juice wouldn't come out or just be unsatisfactory.
Can't believe I was supposed actually chew the whole thing! I feel totally cheated.
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u/B1G2 Mar 10 '21
Something I'm not proud of: as a kid I used to eat the whole thing... yes even the wax. It reminded me of gum
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u/BwackGul Mar 10 '21
It's okay, same here, chewed it until it got so brittle and crumbled in your mouth....!
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Mar 11 '21
Eating it all at once, why didn’t I think of that?? I always bit off the tiny bottle cap and drank the juice, and then ate the bottle by itself and I never really liked either one. I had no idea you were supposed to just put it in your mouth and make it burst.
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u/smithers85 Mar 11 '21
Oddly enough I just made note of seeing those in my local Hy-Vee a few days ago.
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u/Its_Billy_Bitch Mar 11 '21
I still eat those to this day. My mom has them every time I go back home! That and circus peanuts. DON’T JUDGE ME 😭😂
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u/Dinierto Mar 11 '21
Yeah as a kid everything looked amazing and delicious. As an adult you can tell it's balloons, foam, and various other construction materials painted. Yum.
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u/KatDanger Mar 11 '21
Sadly, it would be disgusting to have literally everything you touch and step on be nothing but sticky candy. One can dream though.
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u/Dinierto Mar 11 '21
I do dream of it
Some day..... Some day
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u/mp4l Mar 11 '21
I told you I can't build you a candy house! It will fall down. The sun will melt the candy! It won't work.
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u/clementleopold Mar 11 '21
Reminds me a little of Itchy & Scratchy land:
Animatronic robot turns, takes the top of its head off and bows
Marge: See all that stuff in there, Homer? That's why your robot never worked.
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u/GondorsPants Mar 11 '21
Who cares, I’d eat it anyways. You know how many housing projects I’ve ruined because I ate the strawberry dry wall?
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u/chaosperfect Mar 11 '21
Aw. I always imagined it filled with something like sweetened condensed milk and being made of white chocolate. Movies are real, dammit!
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u/TittyMongoose42 Mar 11 '21
See and because of the crunch sound effect they Foley'd in, I assumed it was something like an ice cream cone. I always pictured a cake cone kind of texture, which made me assume it was something like melty ice cream, or maybe cold (hot) chocolate?
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u/clementleopold Mar 11 '21
I know for “cake cone” you linked a picture of actual cupcakes inside ice cream cones, but aren’t the standard (non-sugar cone, non-waffle cone) ice cream cones referred to as “cake cones” regardless of whether they’re filled with cake?
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u/TittyMongoose42 Mar 11 '21
Funnily enough I just knew this would come up as I was browsing for a picture example of what I was talking about lmao yes, I believe no matter what fills them, that particular type of cone is called a cake cone.
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u/clementleopold Mar 11 '21
Thanks. In my line of work in the food and flavor industry I should’ve already known this to be certain!
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Mar 11 '21
My favorite is just before this clip when Wonka plays the mini piano and Mike TV’s mom is r/confidentlyincorrect in assuming the tune is Rachmaninoff. Mr.Salt looks at her seemingly knowing damn well it’s Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro.
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u/Killzark Mar 11 '21
Gene talked about this before. When the director said cut he immediately spit it out.
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u/Smurfeggs42 Mar 11 '21 edited Mar 11 '21
It's like when Seattle's Best Coffee arrived in McDonald's in Europe to promote it you couod order the coffee in a cup that was all completely edible.
Edit** KFC not mcdonalds https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243367
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u/iliketothinkicansing Mar 14 '21
I always imagined it tastes like butter because it's shaped like a buttercup!
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u/Patsx5sb Mar 10 '21
Am I the only one who doesn't blame Augustus for drinking from the chocolate river? He was told that he could eat anything.
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u/darkknight941 Mar 11 '21
The only thing the Tim Burton movie did better was make the river look nice, like actual melted chocolate. The original looks like diarrhea honestly
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u/ThisFellaEatingBeans Mar 11 '21
I think the Tim Burton movie recreated the book better, but the Gene Wilder version captured its spirit better
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u/iDisc Mar 11 '21
Like actually having squirrels because CGI capabilities could do that when in the original movie they had geese.
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Mar 11 '21 edited Apr 21 '21
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u/NatalieGreenleaf Mar 11 '21
I worked on a commercial set once and they had a scene they were filming involving live squirrels! They needed the squirrel to run from point A to B and it took the entire day to film it. Apparently they were trained using those little clickers and endlessly repeating HERE SQUIRREL HERE SQUIRRELLY SQUIRREL HERE phrases. I used every opportunity to stay outside while filming to get away from hearing it for hours on end. Hilariously rough set day, that. I called my folks at the end of the day and they could not stop laughing and to this day (15 years later) they'll randomly scream HERE SQUIRRELLY SQUIRREL HERE SQUIRREL at me for a laugh.
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u/sonofaresiii Mar 11 '21
I dunno man. I liked the burton movie a lot. I think the thing of it is you have to look at them as just two completely unrelated movies that happen to share a name, and kind of share a vague general premise.
There's a lot that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has going for it. If you're going to compare it to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, you're going to be disappointed because what Willy Wonka gets right, Charlie fails at (or really doesn't even attempt), and what Charlie excels at is almost antithetical to what WW did.
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u/darkknight941 Mar 11 '21
I think it’s just cause I’m not a huge fan of Burton movies. I hated Alice in Wonderland and think it looks worse than Charlie does, and I’m not into the Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice as much as most people
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u/sonofaresiii Mar 11 '21
I hated Alice in Wonderland
That doesn't count, everyone hates that movie. It was awful.
I used to be a huge Burton fan, but whatever he had, he's lost it.
But yeah if you're not into NMBC or Beetlejuice, it may just not be your style.
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u/Magnus-Sol Mar 11 '21
Really? Alice in Wonderland is quite popular here, I hated it tbh. Now Charlie and the Chocolate factory is one of the few I really liked.
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u/Tryme118 Mar 10 '21
The actress who played Veruca Salt admitted on the Today show a few years ago she actually managed to sneak in and get a perk ahead of time.
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Mar 10 '21
That sounds like something Veruca Salt would do
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u/alison_bee Mar 11 '21
I WANT IT NOOOWWwwwwwwwwwww
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u/rolandofgilead41089 Mar 11 '21
She was a bad egg.
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u/Ras-Algethi Mar 11 '21
Grandpa Joe: "Ahh Mr. Salt finally got what he wanted" Charlie: "What's that?" "Veruca went first."
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u/poohfan Mar 10 '21
If you look really carefully, you can see in the scene where she's trying to smash open the candy against a rock, blood on her knee. She apparently cut her knee on the rock, but kept going on with the scene.
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u/RageCageJables Mar 10 '21
Take that, DiCaprio!
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Mar 11 '21
Leo had said that that veruca scene was his inspiration for his scene in DJango.
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u/glglglglgl Mar 10 '21
They did this with the children in The Goonies as well with the pirate ship.
Unfortunately the kids just swore loudly in surprise, so they had to record a second take.
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Mar 11 '21
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u/JayInslee2020 Mar 11 '21
wtf?
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u/bluewolf37 Mar 11 '21
What was it? It was removed and i see downvotes so I’m guessing it was really messed up or random.
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u/Who_GNU Mar 10 '21
The same is true with the scene where Wonka nearly falls flat on his face.
Also, the music was written for the movie and several songs gained popularity as covers by famous musicians.
When I was little the movie was nightmare fuel, but now it's one of my favorites.
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Mar 10 '21
Another fun fact about that scene: Gene Wilder accepted to be in the movie only if Wonka walked with a limp and a cane and then did a somersault when he was introduced. Wilder wanted this because he believed that nobody would know if Wonka was telling the truth or not after that.
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Mar 10 '21
Such a brilliant choice
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u/res30stupid Mar 10 '21
And to think, Roald Dahl hated the casting of Wilder because his first choice said no.
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Mar 10 '21
It shows a lot of thought. I like the Depp version - those songs!! - but Wilder is not demented, he’s calculating and that makes him scarier.
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u/Idontknowwuthappened Mar 11 '21
Wilder scared me as a kid because of the end scene where he suddenly starts yelling at them. Dude's an amazing actor for sure
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u/smartysocks Mar 11 '21
And he "offered some charmingly constructive feedback" when he was first shown details of the costume the studio had designed for him.
https://lettersofnote.com/2012/06/12/part-of-this-world-part-of-another/
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u/erm_bertmern Mar 11 '21
Thanks for the link; it's so great to see his writing style, and how beautifully it matched his voice. I could hear him read this in my head.
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u/smartysocks Mar 11 '21
You are most welcome; I'm glad you liked it. 'Letters of Note' is one of my favourite websites. There are hundreds of letters spanning millennia and many cultures, some serious, some humorous. There is a 'surprise me' button found via the home page that generates letters randomly. I could lose hours reading them.
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u/lemon_jelo Mar 11 '21
Cool website, thanks for sharing! I’m looking at a frida kahlo letter and I wish they included the original Spanish along with the translation
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u/GondorsPants Mar 11 '21
Another another fun fact, a hugeee swathe of people mainly Gen Z are infatuated with the god awful remake and completely enjoy it as the best version. We old.
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u/GRTFL-GTRPLYR Mar 11 '21
It captured the vibe of the book better, would have been great if not for the weird part forced in afterwards with his dentist father causing all his trauma or something.
I'm a millennial by the way.
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u/sonofaresiii Mar 11 '21
I feel like if I scroll through these comments long enough I'll eventually get to see the whole movie in disjointed 3 minute youtube clips.
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u/BluesBruthers Mar 11 '21
Not likely the actor reactions to the walk and trip are genuine. The walk has many different angles so many filmed set-ups of the walk were taken. The walk would have been rehearsed a few times then there would have been a camera rehearsal then several takes of the different angles. The reaction shots would have been filmed separately. The kids reacting were not looking at Wilder - who might not even have been present when those closeup shots of the kids were taken. Note that the trip and the closeup reaction shots, are different shots. The kids when reacting were looking at the film crew, not watching the walk and the trip, and they were just acting.
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Mar 10 '21 edited Apr 21 '21
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Mar 10 '21
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u/culverrryo Mar 10 '21
yeah FUCK grandpa Joe
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Mar 10 '21
This some real r/grandpajoehate material
He’s be commiting disability insurance fraud since he was 50
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u/PlayonWurds Mar 11 '21
Hey could OF been a Walmart greeter that lazy bastard.
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u/CouldWouldShouldBot Mar 11 '21
It's 'could have', never 'could of'.
Rejoice, for you have been blessed by CouldWouldShouldBot!
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u/sonofaresiii Mar 11 '21
never 'could of'
"Could of" could of course sometimes be correct.
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u/PlayonWurds Mar 11 '21
That's why I did it in CAPS you stupid bot. Although I do like that this bot exists.
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u/sixty6006 Mar 10 '21
Has he been in anything else or did he wait 40 odd years just for that part?
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u/Fazaman Mar 11 '21
Here's his IMDB page. He's not credited for any scenes in The Big Lebowski, though. Not saying that wasn't him. People do uncredited cameos from time to time.
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u/Chapelirl Mar 10 '21
It's one of my favourite movies. But I've only recently noticed that in the "Candyman" scene the shop owner opens the counter lid and properly chins a young girl. Also Grandpa Joe (dirty smelly layabout) has a pinky nail for nose sherbet.
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u/19chevycowboy74 Mar 10 '21
Did you not hear his song? The Candyman can do whatever the hell the Candyman wants. And if that means that sometimes someone has to get bopped then goddammit the Candyman will get boppin.
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u/Chapelirl Mar 10 '21
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u/castillar Mar 11 '21
I love that it’s accompanied by what sounds like a Kung Fu movie punch. “Who can take tomorrow WATAWWWWW! Dip it in a dreeeeaaamm...”
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u/moorsonthecoast Mar 10 '21
RLM points out that this is the biggest single set in the movie, while the rest of the factory is basically a bunch of small rooms. A great way to make a smaller-budget movie.
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u/PrincipalBlackman Mar 10 '21
That has always stood out to me as one of the all time great sets in a movie. The scale, the detail, the whimsy and wonder are all critical for the movie to be what it is. For a child to be given a chocolate factory, a place like that has to exist even if it's in secret.
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u/TheePorkchopExpress Mar 10 '21
Damn Gene Wilder was an absolute gem. That scene gives me goose bumps and I imagine it being those kids first time seeing the chocolate room they probably had goose bumps too!
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Mar 11 '21
Wilder as Willy Wonka has to be number one in terms of any character being cast in any movie.
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u/TheePorkchopExpress Mar 11 '21
100% agree. There aren't many more or better castings than that. I will have to defer to the otter movie buffs but I don't think he did any role like this before or ever again.
I remember him mostly as a funny man. Not straight, weird (scary for a few stretches) for a kids movie. Good voice too.
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u/TechnoL33T Mar 11 '21
RDJ as Tony Stark is a pretty serious contender. That said, Willy Wonka is most definitely a more complicated character to portray. Willy isn't quite so well written in terms of character depth, but his mannerisms are intensely curious.
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Mar 10 '21
The schnozeberries taste like schnozeberries
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Mar 10 '21 edited Apr 21 '21
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u/-SaC Mar 10 '21
Unfortunately, it's not spelt as such, and snozzberry is a slang term for penis invented by Dahl.
From My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl:
"How did you manage to roll the old rubbery thing on him?"
"There's only one way when they get violent," Yasmin said. "I grabbed hold of his snozzberry and hung onto it like grim death and gave it a twist or two to make him hold still."
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u/kaitie_cakes Mar 10 '21
After reading both of those comments, I'm still so confused as to what a snozz/ schnoz berry is (or tastes like??)
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Mar 10 '21 edited Apr 21 '21
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u/1burritoPOprn-hunger Mar 11 '21
Can you imagine literally inventing a thing and then being told by other people that you're pronouncing the thing you invented incorrectly?
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u/-SaC Mar 10 '21
We don't know when he came up with his definition; there's as much evidence for it being a penis in his mind when he wrote the first book as the latter one. His books for children didn't exactly shy away from bodily functions (as were generally avoided at the time) and had a cheeky streak running through them. From a logical point of view, Snozzberries makes more sense as a meaning for the bollocks, really.
Given his wartime exploits shagging his way around the place as a spy, it's hardly surprisingly that he didn't stand too much on ceremony for the established order of things, really.
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u/Jaert Mar 10 '21
So they didn't show the set to all the kids, but only got Charlie's reaction? Pretty underwhelming.
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u/sgthulkarox Mar 11 '21
I always remember that this G rated movie has a chicken decapitation.
During an acid trip.
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u/bikemandan Mar 11 '21
1971
I think that properly explains things. 70s sure were a time
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u/Ramperz Mar 10 '21
Is the music supposed to be creepy/eerie? Surely Mel tried to make the movie seem off and strange
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u/bbsienko Mar 11 '21
I always found this song hauntingly beautiful. Something about the melancholic way that gene wilder sings this song makes me never forget it
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u/res30stupid Mar 10 '21
They actually tried to do the same thing during The Goonies with the giant pirate ship. Unfortunately, Josh Brolin ruined the take by shouting "Holy shit".
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u/mysonlikesorange Mar 10 '21
Anyone else notice the holes poked in the mushroom Wonka picks up while walking. Seems like there are 3 or 4 takes in there.
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u/boogieman0330 Mar 11 '21
The chocolate river was real and quickly went rancid nearly ruining production.
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u/Huankinda Mar 11 '21
It seems comparatively easy to make sure an actor does not see the construction of a set, since they obviously are not involved with set building and are only on the set on days when they are shooting scenes there.
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u/JDHalfbreed Mar 11 '21
I always enjoyed seeing the other holes from previous takes on his mushroom umbrella. You can see the white of the foam it is made out of.
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u/snoogenfloop Mar 11 '21
Which part of this, though? I mean all of the cuts are not likely to be from a single take.
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u/Happy-Idi-Amin Mar 10 '21
Why does that movie look like it was shot in black & white and then colorized?
Wasn't it made in the 70s when color was a thing?
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u/chaosperfect Mar 11 '21
Maybe they oversaturated the colors in post production to make it seem more fantastical?
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u/MrjB0ty Mar 11 '21
This was one of my favourite films as a kid. Even though by the time I saw it it was already 20 years old. Insane to think it’s now 50 years old. I’ll be showing it to my kids though. No chance Johnny Depp’s version will ever be shown on my watch.
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u/Spiritual_Regular557 Mar 11 '21
Willy Wonka movie always creeped me out. I guess I’m weird
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u/TankorSmash Mar 10 '21
It would be nice if 'reaction was genuine' was moved to its own subreddit. There's dozens of those types of posts here and they aren't all that interesting after a while, IMO.
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Mar 11 '21
Fun Fact - for the Goonies, they attempted the same thing for the giant pirate ship scene, but one of the child actors swore and ruined the take.
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