Customer Reviews

Candyman

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I found myself in Toronto with very little to do on an afternoon in May of this year. I was in town on business and never like to go to see a film by myself but I walked by a theater that had an enormous long line so my natural curiosity got the best of me. There was a film at this place as part of the Hot Docs program...I must admit that I had never heard of Hot Docs in the United States. I asked a nice man who was waiting in line just what the big deal was.He told me that this was a documentary about the man who created Jelly Belly jelly beans. I have never been much of a fan of documentaries but I had time to kill so I figured what the heck. The first bit of good luck was that I managed to get in. The film was Candyman and it held my interest for the entire time. I do not want to spoil it for you but all I can say is that the film was fantastic and very inspiring. A must see.

I first saw "Candyman" at this year's (2010) Slamdance Film Festival. It was standing room only - the entire audience both roaring with laughter and moved to tears following the journey of David Klein's life and career. That was in January - it's July now, and I haven't been able to shake this delicious documentary film from my candy-loving head. I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Klein (The Candyman) after the screening and hope to visit his actual candy kitchen soon. To say David has had his ups and downs is an understatement - this doc shows it all. And his candy creations - from the ubiquitous Jelly Belly to the more recent Sour Spanks (so sour they'll spank your mouth - and they do) are his life's passion. This movie's not only a treat for candy lovers, its a moving portrait of one of the most memorable entrepreneurs I've ever seen on film.

Candyman is a documentary about David Klein, the man who invented Jelly Belly jellybeans. At first glance you wonder how Klein could be at all connected to the multi-million dollar company. He seems more the typical "guy next door" type than an inventor of a world wide known brand of candy. But soon you realize he's much more.

The story starts out when he is young and just out of high school. The film goes on to explain about his first few jobs and how they lead to his inventing the famous jellybean. There are interviews with his family, friends, investors, etc as well. Footage of Klein promoting Jelly Bellys on television shows across the country is shown and gives us an idea of just how famous and recognizable he was at one time as "Mr Jelly Belly". The film not only explains how the company came about, but also how different business decisions (often bad ones) shaped the company into what it is now. By the end of the film, I found myself somewhat angry at how David Klein, the man who founded and put his life into creating the company, had been completely removed from it in any way, by fellow businessmen willing to take advantage of his kind and trusting personal nature. Mr Jelly Belly himself had been erased from anything that had to do with the brand.

While a bit sad, Candyman is a well done film that tells a great story about one of America's most well known candies and the real faces and stories behind the brands beginnings.

"Candyman" was directed by Costa Botes about the story of David Klein, the rise and fall of creator of Jelly Belly jelly beans. The film was an Official Selection of the 2010 Slamdance Film Festival, Winner of Director's Choice award at Rincon International Film Festival, and 2010 Official Selection of Hotdocs. The product footage alone will leave your mouth watering and wondering to yourself, "When was the last time I got to eat the peanut butter and jelly flavors together?" The most expensive, most flavorful, and best variety of jelly beans on the market had humble beginnings from a salesman of nuts and popcorn.

David Klein is an eccentric -- no doubt about it. We know this because he is scattered in his thought process and loves to keep notes on paper plates because they are good for throwing and he can't possibly lose something as large as a paper plate. He was very intelligent about getting publicity for Jelly Bellys and flavor creation. The uniqueness of the flavors and gourmet beans themselves took off after well-placed stories from the Associated Press were released. Silly television appearances and endorsements by President Ronald Reagan only accelerated their success. When it came time for the business to expand in a major way, the fidgety genius David Klein ended up signing it all away after being bullied by partners without a lawyer.

The story has ups and downs and is an interesting character study of David Klein. Several situations are set-up so that when stories are being told, you can see what David's life was like previously when he was the proud owner of the Jelly Belly brand. Many comparisons are made of David Klein to Willy Wonka...just as whimsical, but with a muttering problem that almost makes him sound like Dustin Hoffman's character in "Rain Man."

Weird Al Yankovic is a featured interviewee on this DVD, not because he ever met the man who invented Jelly Bellys, not because he ever even knew that man's name, but more or less as an amusing celebrity who can provide great soundbites about the enjoyment of jelly beans in general and an appreciation for the brand. He has many remarks that are tongue-in-cheek or sarcastic and the documentary plays it almost serious.

If you like documentaries and origin stories, check this out on Netflix, and pick up a bag or box of Jelly Bellys on your way home because you're going to want them close by.

Bonus Features:

There are deleted scenes including more extended quotes from Weird Al about jellybeans including his take on the Harry Potter Bertie Bott's brand of beans and least favorite flavor being vomit (a failed attempt at a pizza flavor for Jelly Bellys) and favorite flavor being pear. David Klein tries to offer to give Weird Al a special flavor jelly bean like Ben & Jerry's does with ice cream. Other scenes that didn't make the cut into the 1 hour 15 minute long film were about the Candyman's tailor including rhinestones on some of his TV appearance costumes, the thought process to creating a flavor like papaya, David doing a strange dance, and losing his cell phone. These are just more highlights to his eccentricities that don't move the story along.

There are TWO full-length commentaries for this documentary -- one by director Costa Botes and the other by Bert Klein (producer of the movie) and David Klein, son and father combination who went through this journey together. The directer remarks a lot on walking the line between memory lane and having a more linear story and grouping interviews by theme to tell the story of David Klein. Despite some locations not allowing them in to film, the director says "Every time David opens his mouth, something interesting comes out and you can make a movie out of it." On the Klein commentary, David happily reminisces how he was treated going on TV and flying first class, but insists that all geniuses need to find a good lawyer and is clearly still bitter about feeling bullied into a bad business decision. Besides that, he is thrilled to be talking about a movie made all about him and eager to fill in extra facts and Bert laments a bad haircut he had.

Finally, a movie that proves that striking it rich can suck. In the tradition of the where-are-they-now rockumentaries from the Baby Boom era, meet David Klein. And we do meet him - intimately, painfully, honorably, and humorously. Only this former rock star is not a forgotten 70s musician, but a one-shot-wonder in the candy industry, the inventor of Jelly Belly gourmet beans. Not since Ben met Jerry has there been a bigger revolution in the junk food industry. But those two guys apparently had better lawyers. And once you have the inspiration, in the perishable novelty food biz, it's 99% perspiration and not so much fun. David Klein didn't exactly get screwed. He sold his company under pressure for over $4 million and got to keep half it, after taxes, spread out over 20 years. Most of us could live happily ever after on that income. But how much is the human soul worth? Klein had invested too much of himself in his invention, and could not let go. This is not a Franken-Jelly tale. Klein survived and continued to invent wacky confections (including candy Snot in a plastic nose), but never attained the same sugar high. Worse than losing a billion dollar business, Klein was cut out of the Jelly Belly corporate history, reduced not just to a footnote, but to a cipher. Klein's son Bert (and Bert's wife Jennifer) wanted to set the record straight, and his daddy documentary does just that. Bert was five when the bottom fell out of his father's jelly bean business, and he makes it clear that those were not happy times to be the Son of Candyman. The disconnect between father and son is still visible in the film. A successful animator and filmmaker in his own right, Bert Klein peels the candy coating off their side of the Jelly Belly story. We never get the corporate response, so this remains an incomplete tale. We are left only with the bitter pill - the depression, the legal hassles, and the resentment that remains coiled beneath the surface. The dark, grainy, sometimes badly-lit documentary filming drives home the point. It could be subtitled "How Not to Succeed in Business While Trying Really Hard." But David Klein remains the best of all characters - a real live human being struggling to be a nice guy in not so nice world. The documentary may not get his name back into the official corporate history, but it should at least get him into Wikipedia. One can only hope that this great documentary brings some measure of comfort to the Candyman.

Consider all the things we use, eat and see everyday but don't know the 'back story'. What about Jelly Belly's?! Candyman is a true story of entrepreneurship and the human spirit. It is funny, sad and inspiring. Not enough people have dreams. Especially ones that can positively impact so many people. Meet David Klein. He has given us Jelly Belly's, but more than that, he has given us a story we can weave into our own worlds, by learning that when you give it is an amazing way to live.

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Debbie Schlussel just voted Candyman:the David Klein Story as the best documentary of the year 2011. The documentary tells the story of how the Jelly Belly jelly bean was created with a budget of 800.00.

This was a great documentary about a man with a dream and big corporation that tried to squash him.... David Klein is a lovely man with such joy about life, just wanting to make a wonderful treat for the world to love.... The sad thing is how he was betrayed by people he trusted. Shame on the big corporation who took advantage of a man with a heart.

Jelly Belly will NEVER have my business again. Eagerly awaiting what David Klein brings us next....Candyman

This Documentary was great and showed insight to how ideas are made. It made me want to go into the candy business and pitch a few ideas myself. this was a great documentary, very well made and I give it my full blessing to those who want to buy it.

Who invented Jelly Bellys? Well, I don't know about you, but the first place I'd look for the answer would be on the Jelly Belly website, and more specifically on the company history page. Go on, check it out and I'll meet you back here in a few minutes. Alright, according to the official company history it seems that the man responsible for bringing the world Jelly Belly jelly beans would be Herman Goelitz Rowland Sr. Well actually the history lists Rowland and an unnamed marketing guru, but really Herman seems to have been the man with the plan. Well that's that, right? Well, maybe not...

Most of us have heard the fairytale about Jack, his cow, and a bag of enchanted beans, but it wasn't until this past week that I first got a chance to experience a real life variation of the story about a man named David who, instead of selling a cow, sold his bag of magical beans. Candyman: the David Klein Story is a documentary about the eccentric genius who invented America's first gourmet jelly bean called Jelly Belly. Directed and edited by Costa Botes (co-director of Forgotten Silver), the film features David Klein and his son Bert (an animator for Disney and the Simpsons) as they take a look back at the Klein's life, the creation of the iconic confection that was championed by none other than former President Ronald Regan, and how Klein more or less erased from the legacy of Jelly Belly. The documentary follows David on a short tour around a lot of the southern California locations where he worked and developed his passion for making and marketing candy. The journey is peppered by interviews with friends, family and industry professionals (including some super funny witticisms from Weird Al) reflecting on Klein, Jelly Belly, and his love/obsession with making people happy at any cost.

What really struck me was Klein's son Bert (who also produced the film with his wife) and how he was sort of using this documentary portrait of his father to sort of set the record straight, not so much to stick it to Jelly Belly, but to validate Klein's legacy and passion. David Klein had the idea to take the ordinary maligned jelly bean (brilliantly described as Easter basket packing material by Weird Al Yankovic in the doc), and transform it into a natural, high-quality, great-tasting candy. He got the ball rolling, contacting the Goelitz Candy Company and getting them to manufacture his ideal bean, and then took to the road telling everyone that would listen about his creation. There were local publicity stunts, visits to national TV talk shows where Klein was truly decked out in the part of the proverbial candy-man, and zany photo-shoots, all in the hopes of getting the world to notice these amazing Jelly Belly beans. It was as if he stepped out of the pages of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For four years Klein was the face of Jelly Belly and is a huge part of the candy's success.

Costa Botes does a wonderful job of shinning the spotlight on Jelly Belly, Klein and his family, touching on the sadness of the tale without getting too mired in the ennui of corporate shenanigans and unresolved family issues. The documentary is as much about celebrating Klein's eccentricities and ideas as it is about being written out of the history of a pop culture phenomenon. From his use of paper plates as notepads (hard to lose and easy to throw), to his later insane confection creations (my favorite being yellow liquid candy sold in urine sample jars), Klein has led a wacky and truly interesting life and it makes for a very entertaining film. All in all I think this portrait is the perfect way to remind us that there is always more to the story.