Since everything must be about Trump these days, and I've previously compared Trump to some kind of Willie Wonka (though more the bizarre psychically-damaged Johnny Depp version), the passing of Gene Wilder is a sad moment. I remember my joy at being able to turn my kids on to the original Willie Wonka, and his role in Mel Brooks' absurdly popular farting, Cole Porter tap-dancing, German kvetching deconstructionist comedy about the Wild Wild West, after too many billion movies applauding the destruction of a civilization with hardly a moment of second thought or self-doubt. It was arguably part of our national turn in the 70's - Jimmy Carter's "malaise" tied to Taxi Driver and Nixon's resignation and other signs that something wasn't quite right even in Tinseltown, that our 60's celebration was off the rails.

[around that time I saw Richard Nixon who'd come to light "the eternal torch", only to be snuffed out a couple months later due to the energy crisis, while humorously, the guy who sang "Blazing Saddles" didn't even realize it was a spoof - a curious time for all]

Willie Wonka himself was a bit odd still - the man behind the curtain had been a bit too long behind the curtain, no matter how things turned out in the end. In a way, it was a framing bookend moment for modern cinema, from the first introduction of colorful, fantastical world of The Wizard of Oz with its happy frolicking Munchkins to the dark side of Wonka's gated kingdom, including the intimidating, sinister-feeling Oompa Loompas, and followed ironically by Wilder's black-and-white throwback to Frankenstein that he'd taken 2 years to write. The fun ride was over, turned into Abbie Normal, much like the scary rowing scene through the tunnel - the fun park that's no longer fun, the sudden "I wanna go home" feeling of nausea, preluding Banksy's "Dismaland" by 40 years.

It's precious to find out that Willie Wonka's first emergence with cane was scripted by Wilder himself - spur of the moment following audition. Whereas the carny is usually trying to gain our trust, Wilder was trying to gain our distrust - is he serious? is he kidding? which unexpected way will this joyous or terrorizing moment turn? 

I had a high school teacher who used to rave about Wilder's first film, and for years I waited to see it until I finally found it on DVD, in the meantime reciting to friends the funny parts my teacher had implanted in my adolescent head, later 

Wilder's emergence was hardly a bratpack experience, him being 34 when he landed The Producers from a long-running theater gig with Mel Brooks' future wife - actually 30, but he had to wait 4 years for Brooks to get it backed for an astounding $940K budget. But his 1968 vehicle for new stardom was worthy of The Donald himself - a parodic musical about Hitler in Springtime designed to flop that for some reason managed to succeed anyway, to the horror and financial peril of the "producers" themselves.  

[I was once sitting in a café early morning in Munich, coincidentally where Willie Wonka had been shot, pulled down a German paper off the rack to be bewilderingly and amusingly confronted by a full front page photo of girls in lederhosen short-shorts goose-stepping across the stage under swastika'd Nazi flags - The Producers had finally come to Germany]

I was never a big fan of the more slapstick films with Richard Pryor (equating them in my head roughly with the silliness of Adam Sandler films), but Pryor's scripting and timing was perfect for his character in Blazing Saddles, for whom Cleavon Little would brilliantly step in. But Wilder & Pryor came off perfect for a large segment of movie audiences in the 70's, taking off like a meteor and pushing black-white relations in America up another notch as the next obvious step in buddy films (and arguably much more equal billing than the later 48 Hours routine).

A sadder development followed, with Wilder's lovely marriage to Gilda Radner cut off early by her dragged out illness and untimely death. Wilder also chose to hide his emerging Alzheimer's Disease, preferring to leave the illusion of the younger healthier Wonka to his impressionable fans. I usually hate the film versions of good books or even posters that fill in the image over imagination, but in this case Gene Wilder makes a fitting magical recluse as substitute for Quentin Blake's iconic sketches.

In the final scene of Willie Wonka, Gene Wilder's elevator goes up and out, smashing  the glass ceiling into the sky, floating over the dismal industrial town from which Willie hailed, making it look enchanting and magical again. It's as good an impression of going to heaven as I've seen - one golden ticket gets you through the gates. Hopefully the guy behind that gate has a sense of humor, though Wilder can probably talk his way in anyway, since half his roles were behind bars...

G'night, Gene - lights out, that's a take.