Way back in the mid-1950s Theodore Geisel wrote a
screenplay. If you don’t know who Geisel is, you probably know him by his
pseudonym Dr. Seuss. Yes, that Dr. Seuss. The one who wrote about fifty
children’s rhyming books between 1937 and 1990, all of which take place in
fantastic worlds populated by bizarre creatures from the mind of a genius. His
screenplay, for which he also conceived the story, is The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.
It is a scarcely remembered movie, with barely even a
cult following, that I first came upon as a freshman in college, where the Film
Society made it the first in a Halloween double feature with The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I loved
it that first time I saw it and again the next year again (when I became
president of the Film Society I could no longer justify the $250 rental fee
with only about $20 in ticket sales). But I returned to it again recently with
my son, who is well-versed in many of Seuss’s books.
It’s the story of a boy named Bart (played by Tommy
Rettig who was starring on “Lassie” on TV at the time) who dislikes his piano
lessons and the authoritarian Dr. Terwilliger who teaches them so much that he
daydreams a nightmare scenario in which he and 499 other boys are held prisoner
at the Terwilliger Institute and forced to play piano 24/7. His widowed mother (Mary
Healy) has been hypnotized into being the number two at the Institute and is
set to marry Dr. T. Bart just wants to stop the whole scheme and save his mom.
The plumber Mr. Zabladowski helps him out.
It’s not so much the story that hooked me, but the world
created from Seuss’s imagination. Production designer Rudolph Sternad and art
director Cory Odell captured the wonder inspired by the drawings and ideas in
Seuss’s books. The movie comes across as somewhat limited in budget, but Odell
does what he can with sparsely decorated sets, choosing to focus primarily on
curved walls, uneven floors, and ladders to nowhere. The only costume credit
goes to Jean Louis, who outfitted Bart’s mother with elegant gowns to
accentuate her role as the glamorous mother, the image of perfection
nevertheless seduced by the trickery of Dr. T. As the villain, Hans Conried
relishes the chance to play cartoonish evil. This is the guy who voiced Captain
Hook in Disney’s animated Peter Pan
that same year. He knows a thing or two about cartoon villains. But in this
case he gets to use his facial expressions and those eyes of his that sell the
lunacy.
The songs really sell the movie for me too. The musical
score was nominated for an Oscar. The benefit of the studio system was that a
bizarre production like this wouldn’t have to attract talent, it was assigned.
So Morris Stoloff and Friedrich Hollaender, two great Hollywood composers, gave
their considerable talents to what would ultimately become a footnote of both
Hollywood and Dr. Seuss history. All the songs are memorable either for their
lyrical content or the production. “Dream Stuff” is a beautiful little lullaby
sung by Mr. Zabladowski (a very game Peter Lind Hayes) to Bart. The song
becomes a touching moment of surrogate father figure helping relax the
apprehensive child. The “Hypnotic Duel” features a fight between Zabladowski
and Dr. T in which they never make physical contact with one another. It’s all
a choreographed dance number that simply suggests fisticuffs. “Because We’re
Kids” does that great thing Dr. Seuss is capable of in recognizing the divide
between the world and intentions of grown-ups and the put-upon lives of
children. Bart laments that children are mistreated for no reason other than that
they are small and defenseless. It’s one of those beautiful lyrics that tells
us so much about the inner life of a character and connects to a larger theme.
The “Elevator Song” is a dark and sinister number outlining the various methods
of torture in the different levels of dungeons beneath the Institute. And of
course there’s the “Dungeon Ballet,” a gorgeous dance number featuring all
manner of instruments and musicians that are not pianos and pianists. This is
what happens when a megalomaniac relegates everyone who plays the violin or
piccolo to the dungeon.
The 5,000 Fingers
of Dr. T doesn’t stand out as groundbreaking or even incredible cinema, but
it remains timeless sixty years later just as most of the great Dr. Seuss books
do.
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