Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

The 1971 adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel arrives with an impeccable pedigree and an unapologetically commercial soul. Quaker Oats bought the rights to sell a candy bar, and the resulting picture is a feature-length confection with Gene Wilder's sardonic chocolatier at its center. The cast is white to a man, with the exception of the internationally recruited troupe of short-statured performers who play the Oompa-Loompas, a detail that reads today as a production curiosity more than a diversity initiative. The film's real engagement with race happened off camera: the NAACP objected to Dahl's African Pygmy workers, the studio repainted them green and orange, and the title was adjusted partly because "Mister Charlie" carried an ugly charge in the American vernacular. None of that negotiation reaches the screen. The film offers a fantasy about a poor boy and a rich eccentric, with no commentary on either.

On the subject of bodies, the film is actively hostile. Augustus Gloop exists to be sucked up a pipe for the crime of being fat and hungry, and the Oompa-Loompas sing a jaunty tune about it. There is no LGBTQ presence, no feminist reading available, no climate anxiety, and no critique of capital. The factory is a marvel of private enterprise, and the audience is invited to admire it. Wonka is an industrialist who hands out lifetime chocolate supplies and selects an heir. The moral instruction is aimed at children: don't chew gum, don't watch television, don't be spoiled. It is a fairy tale sermon, not a social one.

Craftsmanship survives. Wilder's entrance, the limping walk, the somersault, the sudden ambiguity of a man who may be lying at all times. That is worth preserving, and the National Film Registry agreed in 2014. As a document of progressive sensibility, however, the film is a period piece. Its conscience lives entirely in the production memos.