Goofs for
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: When Willy is coming out of the factory, there is a large shadow crossing the walkway when the camera angle is at Willy's back. Right as he walks into the shadow, they change cameras to show him from a closer shot, and he is further back on the walkway and for the second time walks into the shadow.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Willy Wonka does a pirouette and reaches to push the button for the Wonkavator doors, he misses the button, but the doors open anyway.
  
  
• Continuity: Before Mike Teevee gets taken away, the Oompa Loompa shoe pom-poms are white. When the Oompa Loompas start singing the pom-poms are suddenly orange.
  
  

• Continuity: In the final scene in Willy Wonka's office, the consistency of his hairstyle changes back and forth from neatly-gelled and manicured to flyaway and ungroomed.
  
  
• Continuity: When Mike Teevee is going to send himself via Wonkavision, the cameraman (Oompa Loompa) puts his goggles on twice.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When everyone is in the hallway outside the nerve center, they are all crouched down; when Wonka opens the door they are all standing up straight with 6 feet of room on top of them. The room and hallway are full of other such optical illusions, so this is clearly an intentional artistic effect.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Wonka first allows the children into the chocolate room he makes an umbrella out of a "mushroom" top. As he twirls the umbrella you can see the stab holes in the Styrofoam bottom from prior takes.
  
  
• Factual errors: The liquid issuing from the beehive on the machine that makes the chewing-gum meal is probably not honey, as cold or room-temperature honey is more viscous. Hot honey can drip at that speed.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Though Violet Beauregarde is from Miles City, Montana, the point where the number for her is placed on the map is consistent with Butte, about two hundred miles from Miles City.
  
  
• Continuity: When Charlie opens his first Wonka bar and says he found the ticket, the bar is inside the plastic casing still, but when he turns around, it is out of the casing and in his other hand.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Mike Teevee gets thrown back into the pots/pans after eating the exploding candy in the inventing room, you can clearly see the line attached to his belt that was used by a crew member to yank him backwards.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: The wire holding the Wonkavator is visible as it flies over the city.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Willy Wonka misquotes John Masefield's line in "Sea Fever" when he says "...and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by". The correct line is "...and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by".
  
  
• Continuity: When the Wonkavator appears for the first time, it appears completely different from the one that goes through the glass ceiling (e.g., the spire is missing from its roof, and there is less exterior trim).
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Charlie goes home with the golden ticket just before he hands the ticket to Grandpa Joe, you can see that his mother says something to Grandpa Joe, just behind Charlie's head. You can tell from her lips for a second and then by Grandpa Joe looking at her, but you can't hear anything she says.
  
  
• Continuity: When Charlie finds the coin and buys his first candy bar he stuffs as much as possible into his mouth, yet in the very next scene, his mouth is empty.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the office, after Charlie is introduced to Mr. Wilkinson, Wonka puts his hands on Charlie's shoulders. You can hear Wonka say, "You've won," but his lips don't move.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: At the start of the movie when all the children are in the sweet shop, the shopkeeper lifts up a section of counter to go to the customer side of the counter and does not put the section of counter back down. The shopkeeper returns to behind the counter through another section of counter, and then re-opens the first section of counter to let the kids behind the counter. Also, when he lifts up the counter the second time, a girl by the counter clearly gets smacked on the chin by the rising counter.
  
  
• Continuity: When everyone first enters the chocolate factory containing the chocolate river, the cast enters in reverse order of how they were positioned to in the previous scene when Wonka plays the musical lock on the door.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Candyman gives the children the strip of dots on paper, you can clearly see the kids pretend to pick the candy off the paper and eat them.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Charlie and his family are watching the television, you can see and hear the anchor talking about the chocolate bars. In the next scene when you see Charlie talking to his grandpa, you can only hear the anchor talking because in the background (Full-screen only) the television is off. Although, in the next shot the television is on again.
  
  
• Continuity: In the inventing room by the everlasting gobstopper machine, Veruca looks over her left shoulder at her dad, and Mr. Salt is right behind her. The next shot, Mr. Salt takes a last step towards the group, and is clearly much further to the left of Veruca. When the group is shown from the front again, Mr. Salt is back right behind Veruca.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the kids in the candy store are yelling, "Me, me!" their lips don't move.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: At the beginning of 'Cheer Up, Charlie' Mrs. Bucket's lips aren't moving with the music.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Mike Teevee is telling his mom he feels fine after he got shrunken and put into the television, you can see where his platform ends to the left.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Willy Wonka rushes over to Augustus Gloop, Augustus can clearly be seen pushing himself into the river.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Charlie presses the button in the Wonkavator, you can hear Willy Wonka say 'There it goes", yet, his mouth does not match and you can tell that his audio was edited to say that.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Willy Wonka shuts off the Everlasting Gobstopper machine, he goes to pick one off the conveyor belt to show to the guests. The conveyor belt pulls up briefly with the Gobstopper, revealing it was previously stuck to the belt.
  
  
• Continuity: When everyone first notices the chocolate river, thinking it's dirty water, Willy says, "It's chocolate." As he is saying this, Veruca can be seen putting a piece of candy in her mouth. The camera then cuts to a close shot of Veruca saying, "That's chocolate!?" at which point her mouth is empty and her hand is completely away from her mouth.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During Veruca Salt's 'I Want it Now' number, she claims she wants a bean feast. Her father replies, 'Oh, one of those', but his mouth never moves.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: In the scene where they are going through the tunnel of horrors, they are presumably traveling at a great speed. However there is no wind. In fact, this is due to the fact that the director and the wind-machine operator had a "blow-out" that day, and the director chose to shoot the scene without wind.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The first time you see the world map on the news (indicating where the gold tickets are found), there is a hole/tear in the map around Montana - this is the place where the marker "3" will be placed in later takes.
  
  
• Continuity: Mike Teevee and Violet Beauregarde change positions when everybody leaves the crowded elevator.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Ooopa Loompas are paddling the boat through the tunnel, you can tell that the boat is not moving. The paddles on the wheel show no signs of the chocolate they are supposed to be propelling the boat through.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Violet turns into the blueberry you can see the reflection of the blue light in her hair. But in the same scenes where blue make-up is used instead of the light, you can see the regular flesh-tone under her hair and in her parting.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Charlie's mother tells him there are a hundred billion people in the world all trying to get a golden ticket. The world's population has never surpassed 7 billion.
  
  
• Continuity: When the reporter is interviewing the Gloops the first time we see them, his mic has a life of its own. He holds a normal mic to Augustus, but when he moves it to Mr. Gloop (who bites the end off), it has changed to something more 'manageable'. Then when he moves it to Mrs. Gloop, not only is it whole again, but it has reverted back to the original.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Veruca yells and shakes her head violently during her song, it's blatantly obvious that that the audio does not match her mouth movement.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Mr. Wonka is in the television room and walks from the platform to the camera you can plainly see the ceiling of the sound stage, because the sound stage ceiling is black in comparison to the white room.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Charlie and Grandpa Joe float towards the fan, you can see the cables holding them up.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Violet turns into a blueberry, you can see the hose inflating her blueberry suit. (Full screen only.)
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): During the last Oompa Loompa musical number (following Mike Teevee's undoing), the Oompa Loompa in the foreground apparently doesn't know the words to the song.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Willy Wonka plays the piano lock to enter the chocolate room, Mrs. Teevee misidentifies Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Overture to the Marriage of Figaro as something by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Willy Wonka does his somersault on his way to meet the children, the mat on which he lands is visible under the carpet.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In Wonka's office, the clock's pendulum should be anchored under the number six; it is off-center to the right. The light bulb in the half lamp on the desk is whole. These break the harmony of everything being cut in half.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Mr. Salt pleads with Veruca, he says four Golden Tickets remain to be found. However, he mouths "three" and holds up three fingers. The obvious audio dub indicates either an error, or that the filmmakers may have switched around the order in which the children are introduced during editing.
  
  
• Continuity: The two doors that Willy Wonka exits while coming out of the factory are fully lit, but in the next shot, from the point of view of the crowd, the right door is shadowed.
  
  
• Continuity: You can clearly see that Willy Wonka is about to turn right down the red carpet, but in the next shot, he has been pushed back toward the end of the stairs.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During their first song, the Oompa Loompas sing, "What are you at getting terribly fat", but the words flashing across the screen say, "Where are you at getting terribly fat".
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the fizzy lifting scene you can clearly see the rigging for the actors. And if you look closely you can even see the hooks there attached to.
  
  
• Continuity: In the golden egg room there's a piece of clear plastic on the front of the egg judging device. When Mr. Salt chases after Veruca the piece of plastic is gone.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the golden egg room when you see the egg fall from the top part onto the chute the golden goose is not visible, instead you can clearly see through the hole where the set ends.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the golden egg room the tiles are clearly just wallpaper because of the air bubbles.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: While riding the Wonka-mobile you can clearly see that the pipes and computers are reused from the inventing room, in fact there's a yellow pipe labeled E3 which was previously seen in the inventing room near the great gum machine. As well as the windows and brick walls which suspiciously seem to have the same dimensions as the ones in the chocolate room.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the great glass elevator is going up and out you see numerous windows, during exterior shots none of these windows are seen at any point, in fact all the windows from the exterior of the factory don't match any of the exterior windows.
  
  
• Continuity: While in the elevator grandpa Joe comments about seeing there house, the scene they show later doesn't match earlier scenes of this house.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After the elevator passes through the clouds it disappears, a second later when the clouds are very thin the elevator is completely gone even though it should now be visible.
  
  
• Continuity: When Violet tries the gum she only takes half of it, holding the other half in her hand. Later the other half of the gum has disappeared.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the inventing room a chocolate room pipe was reused as it is still stained brown from the dyes.
  
  
• Continuity: In the golden goose room the hallway leads directly into the room with an opening with no door, later when Veruca is singing the hallway wall has completely blocked off the entrance. After the song has concluded the entrance is opened again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Veruca knocks over the boxes you'll notice that the second door that the group later uses is not there. This is because in order to save money they would move walls in order to complete the set, for this room it would seem that they only had one door and simply used the boxes to mask the fact that the second wasn't there.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Veruca knocks over the boxes some spill open, but they are empty.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When in the light most of the golden eggs have a visible seam from being cast from a mold.
  
  
• Plot holes: Grandpa Joe, who supposedly hasn't been out of bed in twenty years, is somehow able to sneak out and buy a chocolate bar, then wake up Charlie from another room and tell him about it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Oompa Loompas are rolling Violet after she turns into a blueberry, her hair hangs down all the time, and is obviously on a swivel.
  
  

Related Links