DVD Tuesday: 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T: Weirdest Movie Ever!
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T courtesy Sony Pictures
DVD Tuesday: A children's movie to give adults nightmares - dare to enter the mindscape of Dr. Suess via The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T!
I'm not a huge fan of most children's films and never have been, but
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953) is a mind-boggler, and as regular FlickChick readers know, I
love having my mind boggled.
Regular suburban kid Bartholomew "Bart" Collins (
Tommy Rettig, star of TV's
Lassie OK,
co-star) hates taking piano lessons and
really hates his paino teacher, the tyrannical Dr. Terwilliker (
Hans Conried). He'd rather be playing baseball or hanging out with Mr. Zabladowski (Peter Lind Hayes), the plumber who always seems to fixing
something in the Collins house. But Bart's widowed mother, Heloise (Mary Healy), believes piano lessons build character, so there's no getting out of them.
Hence Tommy's extended nightmare - which lasts most of the movie - about being trapped in the bizarre world of the Terwilliker Institute, where Dr. T has built a monstrous piano that seats 500 unhappy, imprisoned children. They arrive in yellow school buses surrounded by armed guards, their suitcases are searched for contraband toys and sports equipment - and Mrs. Collins is Terwilliker's stern right hand and wife-to-be.
The Terwilliker Institute set looks like De Chirico paintings, all oddly angled corridors, ladders to nowhere and hard, menacing shadows, surrounded by barbed wire and lit with sky-scraping searchlights. Terwilliker's enforcers include an odd pair of roller-skating gentlemen who share one single long, gray beard, and the dungeon is full of unfortunates who dared to play instruments other than the piano. (They even have a little dance number designed by noted choreographer Eugene Loring.)
Don't even get me started on the little blue beanies topped by yellow hands the kids are forced to wear - creepy. Short of the short, Salvador Dali-designed nightmare in Alfred Hitchcock's
Spellbound,
Dr. T probably the most authentically surrealistic vision in the history of Hollywood films.
And that's before you get to the Freudian nightmare of Mrs. Collins - a vision in stern, rhinestone glasses and super-glam, blue-sequined evening gown - surrendering to the sinister allure of Dr. T, soon to be -
sob! - Bart's new dad.
And let's talk about Dr. Terwilliker: Hans Conried acted in dozens of films, but is best known as a voice artist - you've heard him in everything from
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show to the 1970 animated TV version oh Dr. Suess'
Horton Hears a Who. His insinuating, oddly accented voice is peculiar in that Vincent Price way, and Conried puts a cheerfully unnerving spin on Suess' signature wordplay, especially in the number that celebrates dressing up for the big recital. His sartorial musings include "undulating undies with the marabou frills," a "purple nylon girdle with the orange blossom buds" and "peek-a-boo blouse with the lovely interlining made of Chesapeake mouse" - none of which, fortunately, he actually wears. He just ends up looking like a deranged drum major.
The whole film is weird, perverse, wildly imaginative and a hit at parties, especially if drinking is involved.
Things to Consider:
Do you think the recent live-action Dr. Suess movies
How the Grinch Stole Christmas or
The Cat in the Hat do justice to his unique style?
How about the animated
How the Grinch Stole Christmas?
What are the pitfalls of adapting Dr. Suess' very particular vision?
People often use the word "surreal" to mean weird, but real surreality is hard to evoke on film, and it's rare. What examples can you think of?
Send your movie questions to
FlickChick.
Hear Maitland on the weekly podcast
TV Guide Talk.
See Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this week's new flicks on the
Movie Talk
vodcast.
Previously in DVD Tuesday:
Shoot 'Em Up
Freeway
A Mighty Wind
It's a Wonderful Life
Waitress
Laura
Cop
All About Eve
Severance
Sweet Smell of Success
Daughters of Darkness
The Crazies
Blade Runner
Zodiac
Manhunter
A Simple Plan
Taxi Driver
Renaissance
Blowup
Hot Fuzz
300
Ace in the Hole
Eyes Without a Face
Apocalypto
Citizen Kane
La Jetée
Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
Bob le Flambeur
Near Dark
Perfect Blue
Pan's Labyrinth
Les Girls
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The Queen
Expresso Bongo
I'm Not Scared
Shocking Grindhouse Double Bill! - Scanners and The Candy Snatchers
Don't Look Now
Re-Animator
Casino Royale
Pi
The Prestige
13 Tzameti
The Departed
Suspiria
Kiss and Make Up
Kiss Me Deadly
The Long Good Friday
What Alice Found
The Devil's Backbone
The Descent
The Devil Wears Prada
Pandora's Box
The Thief and the Cobbler
Nashville
Panic in the Streets/Jack Palance Interview
The Pusher Trilogy
Scarface
Slither
Sunset Blvd.
In Cold Blood
Brick
