In fact, these movies have ironically only solidified these books' classic status in the cannon of children's literature.All Time Domestic Box Office (Rank 6,601-6,700)Īll Time International Box Office (Rank 16,301-16,400)Īll Time Worldwide Box Office (Rank 9,901-10,000)
The irony is all these movies did come out, most of them were box office hits, all of them were warmly greeted by the critical community, and all of them are regarded as classic children's films by the public. Travers also hated Mary Poppins in addition to all this.
#Willy wonka and the chocolate factory album itunes movie
Lewis was so worried about a bad live action movie version of his Chronicles of Narnia coming out that he wrote a letter to the BBC forbidding them to do a film version of his stories. And 2 years after Chocolate Factory's premiere EB White trashed the 1973 Hannah Barbera version of his classic Charlotte's Web, calling it a "travesty". A year before this, Norton Juster, the author of the similarly themed Phantom Tollbooth, was also very critical and hostile towards the Chuck Jones/MGM joint film production of his story which came out in 1970 and starred Butch Patrick. Roald Dahl (though he reportedly often appeared on the set before the movie's premier, according to people like Julie Dawn Cole) hated this movie and was very vocal about his distaste with the press. Secretaries were treated like servants, tantrums were thrown both in person and in letters, and when Bob Bernstein, as head of Random House, didn't accede to his immoderate and provocative financial demands, we sensed anti-Semitic undertones in his angry response.Ĭhildren's literature authors are notoriously hostile to Hollywood and its attempts to adapt their stories. but his behavior at Knopf grew more and more erratic and churlish. His behavior to the staff there was so demanding and rude that no one wanted to work with him, and in any case there was no one there who was elevated enough for him to deign to deal with. In his memoir Avid Reader, Robert Gottlieb, who was top-brass there from 1963 to 1987, wrote a little about working with Dahl:
This recently unearthed memoir covered by the New Yorker confirms this: "For almost twenty years, his New York publisher was Alfred A. They were added for one reason by David Seltzer when he rewrote the screenplay.Īccording to a publisher who worked with Roald Dahl for many years the author was roundly considered to be a jerk an abusive, intolerable person, with blatantly anti-semitic tendencies. These literary quotations were not in Roald Dahl's original script. "The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last" is a quote from Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest". "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker" is the entire text of the poem "Reflections on Ice Breaking" by Ogden Nash. " are from Shakespeare's "As You Like It". The lines to the song "Sweet lovers love the spring. "Where is fancy bred." and "So shines a good deed in a weary world" are from William Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" (though the line from "Merchant of Venice" was slightly rewritten Portia's actual line is "So shines a good deed in a naughty world"). "We are the music makers." is from Arthur O'Shaughnessy's "Ode", which also gave us the phrase "movers and shakers". Among Wonka's lines are the following quotations: "Is it my soul that calls upon my name?" from William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" "All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by" from the John Masefield poem "Sea Fever" "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" from John Keats's "Endymion: A Poetic Romance", and "Round the world and home again, that's the sailor's way!" from William Allingham's "Homeward Bound".