Movies That Time Forgot: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

If there was ever a film that fits my premise, it's this 1953 oddity, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.  Starring Hans Conried, Tommy Rettig, Mary Healy, and Peter Lind Hayes, directed by Roy Rowland (with uncredited re-shoots by Stanley Kramer), this movie was the only feature written by children's author Dr. Seuss, and it's failure as well as his poor treatment by the studio lead directly to his career change, giving the world classic books such as The Cat in the Hat and The Grinch.

A young boy named Bart is forced by his single mother to take piano lessons under the tutelage of pompous, authoritarian Dr. Terwilliger while he'd much rather be outside playing.  He gripes to the plumber, Mr. Zabladowski, that his mom is being hypnotized by the pretensious doctor, but isn't believed.  Bart falls asleep at the piano, and enters into a surrealistic dream world where Dr. T is indeed controlling his mother, and he's being held captive in a giant Seussian fortress, forced to play piano all day.  Mr. Zabladowski is there installing sinks, and Bart enlists his help to free his mom and stop Dr. T's evil plan to...okay, his evil plan makes ZERO sense.  He wants to marry Bart's mom and get 500 children to play the world's largest piano.  I have no idea what this is meant to accomplish, but then, this film is full of silliness and nonsense.

This film is a musical, with songs by Dr. Seuss.  The songs are full of made up words, strange time signatures, and odd rhythms.  It is also fairly whimsical, but it feels like there's a sinister undercurrent to it all, especially in the scenes where it's revealed that Dr. T has a dungeon full of non-piano playing musicians (he only likes the piano), and then...well, there's this friggin' guy:

That's good old fashioned nightmare fuel.  His weird googly eyes and his haunting voice freaked me out.  Seriously, why is this guy in what's essentially a kids movie?

And that's why I wanted to recommend this one.  It's so weird and funny and off-putting...everyone who loves Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory should do themselves a favor and see this one.  It was just on the Svengoolie show on MeTV, and I think it's probably on DVD or Blu Ray.  So very very weird and pretty lovable.  The film apparently was heavily edited on it's original release to make it less dark and more suitable for children, and it is, but there's still some wonderfully jagged edges on it.

"FIRST FLOOR DUNGEON

Assorted simple tortures.

Molten lead, chopping blocks

And hot boiling oil.

SECOND FLOOR DUNGEON

Jewelry department.

Leg chains, ankle chains,

Neck chains, wrist chains, thumb screws

And nooses of the very finest rope.

BASEMENT DUNGEON--

EVERYBODY OUT."