The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.

haddock wrote on IMDB:

Of course this is not really a movie for children. The structure of the movie is similar to "Wizard of Oz", beginning with a child which seems to be frustrated with the real life and then dreaming into another world, full of magicians, witches, fabulous adventures and so on. But while "Wizard of Oz" is funny, the characters can simply be divided in "good" and "bad", the adventures can be understood - in "5,000 Fingers" the little boy enters a nightmare! Funny and helpful characters are emotional disturbing. A witch can be recognized as fabulous being, but a piano-teacher is close to real life, and Dr. T. is much more frightening than the evil witch from Oz! The decoration and especially the musical numbers are fantastic, think of the bearded twins on skaters! Fantastic! The psychology of the movie is excellent: A boy suffering from the lack of a father is afraid that his beloved mother is hypnotized by a strange man and will marry him. Certainly thousands of children at any time are fearing such a situation. Literature and cinema are full of this theme, think of "Alice in Wonderland", "Fanny and Alexander" and so on. Really interesting is the time at which this movie was made. During the 50s almost everything was nice and perfect, and here you have a nice and perfect Musical showing frightening, fear, the "other side" of everything. - Here in Germany I am desperately waiting for getting it on DVD or TV! This movie is quite unknown and perhaps unpopular for its content. But believe me: It's one of the "pearls" in movie history!

bteigen wrote on IMDB:

This movie is one of the most bizarre and random films I have ever seen. It combines a mind-boggling storyline (a kid dreams he's trapped in a castle ruled by his satanic piano teacher who is setting up a piano camp for 500 players), intriguing characters (the heroic, down-to-earth plumber, the helpless, beautiful, damsel/mother in distress, the all-American kid on the block, and the disturbing, foppish, freak of a villain, Dr. Terwilliker) weird costumes and sets, and the most outrageous songs ever conceived. Among my favorites are the "Doe-me-doe" dress up song, "The Dungeon Song," and "We are Victorious!" Any orchestra geek will get a kick out of the dungeon ballet. This is a terrific film to scare your friends or corrupt your children. I highly recommend it to anyone with an unbalanced imagination.   [ show more ]

Also recommended: The Brave Little Toaster, Time Bandits, Happily Ever After: a Snow White Tale, The Never Ending Story, Nightmare Before Christmas and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. [ show less ]

theowinthrop wrote on IMDB:

Hans Conried was a marvelous character actor, usually in comedy parts. He was possibly the first non-regular to appear on a popular television series (MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY - later THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW) whose appearances were so welcomed that he became a leading regular to the extent that he stayed for the entire run of the show. But he was tall, had a nasal voice, and while striking looking could not be called handsome. So when he appeared in films it was (for most of the 1940s) in bit parts, although he usually was very effective in them. Take a look at his ill-fated magician in JOURNEY INTO FEAR or his possibly communist agent/waiter in THE SENATOR WAS INDISCREET.

Only in 1953 did he get a clear shot at stardom in this film, which fortunately survives and flourishes. His Dr. Terwilliger, the demonic piano teacher, is the center of this fantasy. He will prove his method of piano teaching is foolproof, even if he breaks the spirits of all the little boys in the world to do so. Conried relished the role (just like he would relish Snidely Whipflash on the Dudley Do-Right cartoons, and later his Professor Waldo Wigglesworth in the lesser remembered Hoppity Hooper cartoons). He also has a real chance to strut his singing abilities in the number "Dress Me Up". One wonders if that number, where Dr. T. sings and dances while he puts on his music conductor / leader's costume, influenced a spoof on THE SIMPSONS, where Mr. Burns sings a song (to the music of "Be Our Guest") in which he revels in all the clothing he has made from endangered species.   [ show more ]

The rest of the cast (Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy and Tommy Retig) are better than competent, but it is definitely Conried's show. Interestingly enough Peter Lind Hayes had a role in THE SENATOR WAS INDISCREET, and one wonders if his and Conried's casting together here has anything to do with that (they really did not interact together in the other film).

Theodore Seuss Geisel (a.k.a. "Dr. Seuss") has not been greatly served in the movies. Only this film, THE CAT IN THE HAT, and HOW THE GRINCH STOLE Christmas, have appeared on film. The last film was pretty well done, but there was a lot of complaints about THE CAT IN THE HAT. On the other hand television specials based on his works are more frequent. What many people don't know is that Geisel/Seuss was a life long liberal and he questioned many establishment views (which may explain his continued popularity). He was also a complete opponent of fascism, Nazism, and Communism, which he fought with political cartoons up to 1944, and which colored his early works. His book, YERTL THE TURTLE, about a turtle who forces his fellow turtles to form a pyramid throne for him on their backs, which finally collapses at the end, was actually an attack on Hitler (in the original cartoon Yertl has a small mustache under his "nose"). My guess is that when he wrote THE 5,000 FINGERS Geisel/Seuss was likewise attacking totalitarianism. It was 1953, and the Nazi and Fascist Italian and Japanese regimes were gone, but Stalin's Russia was still around. It certainly looks like the use of labor/concentration camps and torture were on his mind when looking at "Dr. T's" establishment. [ show less ]