Ever since I was a child myself, being force-fed junk like "Snowball Express", I've loved a good "children's film." I hate to use the words, since a good movie is a good movie, whatever its target audience (and the best so-called "Children's Film" can be enjoyed by adults--and adults who have not lost their sense of wonder. And though the reputation of "The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T." has been enhanced by its being rejected (by the sort of people who adopt troubled dogs at the pound, like a cousin of mine, rather than the cute ones), it fails at the primary goal of all movies: entertainment.First, the good! Hans Conreid, one of the great underrated actors, dances between shining wonderfully and chewing the scenery (also wonderful) as Dr. Terwilliker, who wants to have his piano students doomed to playing a very long piano. It was Conreid's big chance as an actor, and he made the most of it.Also excellent are the Dr. Seuss-designed sets! They're wackily Seusslike. It's too bad it's a place dominated by the evil Dr. Terwilliker, for what child, under better circumstances, wouldn't want a playhouse like this! Every shot in Terwilliker's palace has something worth seeing.Most importantly, since he has the central role, former "Lassie" star Tommy Rettig isn't bad as Bartholomew Collins. His singing voice is dubbed, but that's just fine with me. Like the kids in "Mary Poppins" he's not overly cute and his dilemma seems real. It's too bad he's stuck in that awful cap (I never liked beanies and refused to wear them at Rettig's age).Some parents have complained about the film's dark side. Trust me: kids are more resilient than today's mushy parents credit them for. They might get nightmares (who doesn't--you wake up, so what?) But kids enjoy being frightened. One of my all time favorite Christmas films is "Scrooge" with Albert Finney and it scared me witless when I saw it in the theater.Unfortunately, the film is a musical. This is a mistake so many children's films make. Since this is a movie about a piano teacher, songs do make sense, but the production lurches from one leaden song to another. Only a couple, focusing on Terwilliker's evil side, have any merit. You're still not going out whistling them.But children's flicks don't just have great children, they have to have great parents (acting-wise, that is). The actress playing Bartholomew's mother (admittedly a small part) lacks charisma and her career petered out by the time she was forty. The pivotal adult role, the heroic plumber August Zabladowski, requires a third- or fourth-string Danny Kaye. While it's funny to hear Bartholomew running through Dr. Terwilliker's palace calling "Mister Zabladowski!" over and over, when he actually arrives he's uninteresting.It's a film worth seeing--once--for Dr. Seuss' design. But just because a movie has a poor reception doesn't mean it's "Le Sacre du Printemps" all over again. I suppose one day "Heaven's Gate" will be reconsidered as a cult classic by folks who adopt an air of superiority by pretending to enjoy a film most people found dreadful. Sometimes, in the end, films are dreadful. Perhaps by recasting the mother and plumber or tweaking the songs they might have had a minor classic. Instead, they have the not-so-rare phenomenon of a children's film crafted . . . for adults, because it will bore rather than scare kids. And it bores adults when Conreid leaves the screen. It's not a good movie when you're watching the wonderful backdrops rather than the actors.

How director Roy Rowland ever managed to get this chaotic vision of the incomparable Dr. Seuss on the screen is a tale in itself. From the beginning, placing Seuss's maniac work in front of audiences made of "atomic" 1953 movie-goers was a tremendous gamble that didn't pay off. Staid suburbanites didn't get it, children were afraid of it, and the huge production costs to screen the film in "Wonderama" (utilizing three separate screens/projectors all at the same time years before Cinerama) sank the film which was already being savaged critically. "Fingers" is something unique. It perfectly captures the zeitgeist of the era in which it was made. All-American boy Bart Collins (played by the utterly elfin Tommy Rettig) is forced to endure piano lessons at the behest of one Dr. Terwilliker, his evil piano teacher (Hans Conried, chewing up ALL the scenery). "Real" boys don't do sissy music lessons, even though his widowed mother (Mary Healy) slaves to pay for Bart's lessons. The boy's only friend is the the manly plumber August Zablidowski (Peter Lind Hayes, the real life husband of Mary Healy) thinks the piano maestro is a crook, robbing the pocketbooks of American moms. Young Bart falls asleep at the keyboard, and dreams himself into a nightmare: the Terwilliker Institute for boys with "Happy Fingers" who will give voice to the gigantic piano designed to showcase the talents of 500 boys simultaneously. Hence, 5000 fingers.Dr.Seuss's nightmare world comes to startling life here on gigantic sets. Mazes that the child Bart must confront (his emerging libido), the rescue of his mother, now a slave to the swishy Dr., and a nuisance to the plumber who see nothing of what's going on around him. All the subconscious 50's psychological tropes are here: An evil, and obvious, homosexual will indoctrinate boys into a life of cultural pursuit no matter what it takes. The mother, who is the only female character seen during the film, has been taken in by the rhetoric of the Dr. and rejects both her son and a possible husband by force of hypnosis. Fey singing and dancing occur often in the film, culminating in the infamous "elevator" sequence in which a muscular man in a hood sings about the horrors of torture found on each floor. The dungeon orchestral ballet features the gayest green men ever seen on film, watch for the "xylophone" sequence in which bearded half-naked men make music on a keyboard wearing Technicolor pastel fuzzy mittens. This is followed by the show-stopping tongue twisting "Do-Mi-Do Day (The Dress Me Song)" in which fashion forward Dr. T gets his freak on, attended by valets in lavender tuxedos in a dressing room with columns that are nothing short of phallic.However, in terms of 1953, it's questionable that anyone "saw" the film as it appears today. Having seen this film dozens of times over the years, it feels as innocent as any post-war fantasy film could have. Still, the years since it first appeared have reshaped the context into something far more sinister than the dream of a young boy who just wants to play baseball and not be saddled with anything that might be cultural. A fascinating film that's gained a huge cult following over the past decades, it's up to the viewer to ultimately decide if the film's makers actually did what we think they did...or has the social implications of our time reshaped what we see on screen? For the true fans of this slice of early psychedelia, see it in it's original theatrical format if you ever get the chance. For many years in the late 70s, the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia mounted this eccentric film in it's original form including the three projectors and stereo sound on their wonderful Cinemascope screen. It was their annual Christmas offering...and tickets sold out yearly by Halloween. Seeing "Fingers" as it was meant to be experienced is something all fans of the film should hope for.

Dr. Seuss story becomes heavy-coated, high-minded semi-musical set inside a manic fantasy world. Put-upon youngster imagines himself to be the prisoner of his cold-hearted piano teacher, unleashing a flurry of surreal, menacing images worthy of "Pink Floyd The Wall"! A triumph of production and set design, which no doubt trumps the unmemorable musical score, the film hasn't much to offer beyond its imaginative look (which will be enough to satisfy some). Hans Conried is well-cast as the nefarious Dr. Terwilliker, but there really isn't anything interesting for Dr. T. to do--forcing Conried to exaggerate the character's nastiness in a virtual vacuum. This premise had limitless possibilities, and yet, as it unfolds here, the plot isn't inviting or absorbing. ** from ****

Young Bart Collins (Tommy Rettig) has only one enemy in the world. It is his piano teacher Professor Terwilliker (Hans Conried). The creator of the Terwilliker Method of learning the piano and well-known racketeer obviously has Bart's widowed mother (Mary Healy) buffaloed. Why else would she want Bart chained to the piano for the rest of his days? He can't even get sympathy from his friend Mr. Zbladowski (Peter Lind Hayes), the plumber.Out of Bart's fear and longing we are plunged into a nightmare that could only have come from the mind of the film's writer, Dr. Seuss. Fantastic and strange sets, incredible eye-filling use of Technicolor, plus fun and moving songs take us on a wild journey. A unique and totally winning movie experience.