THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T is a movie that simply has to be experienced to be appreciated. Tommy Rettig is Bart, a normal little boy who emphatically does not want to be tied down to his piano lessons. His teacher is a grueling taskmaster whom the boy loathes. He drifts off into a nightmare prison world where he is being commanded to play. His Mother has been hypnotized into assisting Dr. T, and Bart tries to enlist the help of the friendly plumber, August, to free her. Heloise, the Mother and August are winningly played by real life husband and wife team Mary Healy and Peter Lind Hayes. Bart is played by Tommy Rettig, and Dr. T is played with flamboyant relish by marvelous Hans Conried, and he steals the show. This film was conceived by Dr. Seuss, and I must say there is nothing else ever filmed to compare it to. A huge flop when first released in 1953, the film today has a well-deserved cult following. The beautiful Technicolor pops off the screen in the blu ray version that I saw this on.

The bane of adolescent Bart Collins' existence is the piano lessons he is forced to take under the tutelage of Dr. Terwilliker, the only person he admits he detests because of his dictatorial nature. Bart feels Dr. Terwilliker has undue influence for these lessons on his widowed mother, Heloise Collins. The one person who sympathizes with Bart, although quietly on the sidelines, is the Collins' plumber, August Zabladowski.Seuss has made some strange books, which become strange movies. So far as I know this was never a book. But it is strange, and takes what is typically a cartoon format and brings it to life... with music, odd questions, dancing and some dark humor. It's like "Seven Brides From Seven Brothers" meets "Cat in the Hat", only darker.

Oddball fantasy about a boy escaping into dreams to avoid his tyrannical piano teacher. Trouble is his dreams are also terrorized by the same teacher and his minions.The movie's definitely not for everyone. There's little dialog and in a cast of hundreds, there's exactly one woman! Most of the time is taken up by either dance routines or little Collins (Rettig) running hither and thither to get away from his tormentors. Frankly, I fast-forwarded through some of the routines. Unlike some other reviewers, the sets and art direction impressed me as imaginative and well-done. The candy box colors also hold the eye, and I wouldn't be surprised the exotic project was intended to compete with new-fangled TV.Also looks to me like the woodenly conventional Zablodowski (Hayes) is intended as reassurance amid all the unconventional settings. Taking a child to the movie would be a risk, I think, since the material could easily come across as nightmarish, whatever the original intentions. Little Rettig does well as the average boy, while the eccentric Conreid is at his most archly sinister. And what about that chaotic scene of hundreds of little boys escaping that piano from heck. I'll bet that was a year's worth of headache trying to keep a mob of ten- year olds in line.In years of viewing, I've seen nothing quite like this production. Frankly, I'm not sure I liked the overall result. Definitely, this oddity should be approached with caution, unless you like seeing bands of men dance to no particular purpose or little boys run and run and run.

The rich imagination of Dr. Seuss and the suburban daydreams of the early 1950s combine to make this one-of-a-kind musical fantasy more than just a perverse novelty item: rarely has a film captured so well the unique perspective and peculiar logic of childhood. Kids will no doubt identify with the young hero, an unhappy piano student who dreams of liberating, with the help of a handsome plumber, 500 boys held captive at the mile long keyboard of his maniacal music tutor, Dr. Terwillicker (played by Mr. Fractured Flickers, Hans Conreid). But only adults will appreciate the shear strangeness of it all: the surrealistic architecture; the outrageous and colorful costume designs; and the improbable song and dance numbers, with nonsensical lyrics only Dr. Seuss could have written. At times it almost resembles a nightmare vision of child anxiety, but the passing years improve the film by restoring to it the innocence of the age in which it was made.