The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

Now that your kids have seen Horton Hears A Who (two thumbs up from my daughters, btw) it's time to start building their indie cred by showing them the first Dr. Suess film. Long before Jim Carrey and Mike Myers created nightmare fuel for an entire generation, long before Grinch and Cat In The Hat were even written, Theodore Geisel wrote the script and songs for an original children's film. It's a bizarre little number, of course. So bizarre that the studio dumped it in 1953 with very little fanfare. I didn't even know it existed until a few weeks ago.

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is about a little boy who daydreams of being trapped in an enchanted castle run by his oppressive piano teacher Dr. Terwilliker. His mother is there, held in a hypnotic trance by the villainous Dr.T. There's no father in this boys life, so the paternal figure is a plumber named August Zabladowski who's been laying some pipe for his mom in out in the real waking world. In this boy's dream world he tries to set his mom up with the plumber because he's desperate for a father figure. So desperate he takes to calling the plumber Pa. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This sounds like a Spielberg movie when in fact it resembles what might happen if Salvador Dali adapted Roald Dahl.

The story follows the boy as he attempts to stop Dr. T's evil plan of wiping out every instrument from the planet, except the piano. This way he can impose his draconian piano lessons on the entire world. You see? The plumber is there to install sinks so the make-believe evil castle populated with dungeons, traps, and assorted mindless henchmen can pass a building code inspection. Got that? Basically the plot exists to take the boy from one strange scenario to the next. The sets and costumes are right out of Geisel's imagination. The place is full of large sharp angles, odd contraptions, and staircases that lead nowhere but "UP" as a big signpost says.

But what keeps things moving from scene to scene is radio veteran Hans Conried as the wicked Dr.T. Conried plays his character as the most cartoonishly evil foe ever filmed. If he had a long moustache he'd be twirling that thing like a motherfucker. Distorting his face into absurd expressions, shamelessly rolling his tongue over every syllable he utters- Dr.T is what you would get if Lost In Space's Dr. Smith and a post-stroke Kirk Douglas stepped into Seth Brundle's teleportation pod together.* We're talking some modern pop culture kabuki shit here.

For my money the film's show stopping number is the "whammy fight" between Dr. T and The Plumber. It's a fight that's half pantomime, half interpretive dance (and ALL fabulous!). The two circle each other as they swing and kick through the air, each reeling from the other's attack, but never making physical contact. This happens early on and unfortunately nothing that comes after matches it's sense of audacious silliness. A baritone singing elevator operator wearing an executioners mask and covered in black body paint comes close, though.

There's another genuinely charming moment when the plumber and the kid bond with some make believe fishing. Peter Lind Hayes, as Pa Plumber Zabladowski, lends this scene some sincerity and charm. As far as the bland-leading-man-a-son-tries-to-hook-up-with-their-single-mom type goes, Hayes is pretty good. He's got a few snarky lines (uncommon for the 50's) that he delivers with pitch perfect timing. Too bad the boy is so wooden I can't even remember his character's name. He brings with him the charisma of a grade school talent show.**

You can find Dr. T on DVD. I think Netflix might even have it in their streaming library. But will these jaded kids today like it? I suggest a primer course in more traditional old school kids movies first. If they like Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz, they should be ready to dig on this. Dr.T doesn't have the same budget as those classics, but it's got plenty of moxie. And it's 83% less likely than today's live action Suess movies to cause night terrors.

*For the horror fans- I also thought he bore an uncanny resemblance to Bob from Fulci's Gates Of Hell.

** I hate busting on kid actors because you know they got pushed into show business by their parents. But he's an adult now, so the gloves are off.