Product Description

Fantasy film seen from the eyes of a 9-year-old boy who imagines his insufferable piano teacher torturing 500 little boys by forcing them to play in a grand piano concert.
Genre: Feature Film Family
Rating: G
Release Date: 7-OCT-2003
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8667 in DVD
• Brand: HAYES,PETER LIND
• Released on: 2001-04-24
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 89 minutes

Amazon.com
Bart: I don't think the piano is my instrument.
Dr. Terwilliker: What other instruments are there, pray tell? Scratchy violins, screechy piccolos, nauseating trumpets, et cetera, et cetera?

The only live-action Dr. Seuss movie for nearly a half-century, this delightful musical comedy is a treat--something for kids who thought they have seen everything. Young Bart (Tommy Rettig of TV's Lassie) detests his piano lessons with the fanatical Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried). As with Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Bart falls into a dream world in which the piano teacher--renamed Dr. T--is ruler and children are hunted down to have piano lessons. Worse yet, Dr. T has magical control over Bart's mom (Mary Healy). The Oscar-nominated songs are uneven but the art direction is superb, creating a truly magical world (and the world's longest piano). Dr. Seuss's love for language stays intact. Many kids of the 1950s might remember Bart's five-fingered beanie, which was a top seller. Great fun for the 5-10 age range, and adults too. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

Beware the two versions!
This was one of my favorite films as a boy and its imagination and camp, crazy vision still enchants as an adult! Hans Conreid turns in the most wonderfully demented, camp villain performance since Ernest Thesiger's prim and fussy Dr. Pretorius in "Bride of Frankenstein"! "Do Me Do Duds" is a scream! The song of the Terwiliker Institute, "Hurray For Us!" is a riot! And, yes, the song, "You Have No Right," is touching and poignant. The one sure to give little ones nightmares will most likely be what I call "The Elevator Song." I don't know who the S&M Dungeon Master/Elevator Operator is, but BOY can he belt out a scary little ditty. One word of warning to those who care about the quality of the print of your films, the video reviewed here is an excellent restored print, apparently taken from the original negative. The Technicolors are vibrant and alive, BUT there's a clamshell packaged version floating around out there you should avoid at all costs. The print used for this version is washed out and lifeless and even turning the color control up on your TV won't compensate for a poor quality print. Apparently, when Columbia/Tristar labeled the film for their Family Collection, they figured most families must be color blind and wouldn't notice. So remember, if it says clamshell packaging, avoid it! The ONLY reason to buy the clamshell version would be if you needed the closed-caption feature, but what a rip off! The deaf are being cheated out of a great visual experience with this truly horrible print.

Age shall not wither nor custom stale this wonderful movie
Hollywood could not do a better movie today if they tried, even with modern special effects technology and buckets of money, witness the live-action "Grinch" if you don't believe me. I first saw this movie as a child in the late 1970s where it was a staple of Saturday afternoon movies. What can be said? Hans Conried makes this movie as the campy, completely over the top and utterly mad Dr. Terwilliker.
The story and sets are wonderful, reflecting the fertile, and rather twisted, imagination of Theodore Seuss Geisel. Tommy Rettig is perfect, and never annoying as Bartholemew Cubbins, the precocious child star of the movie, Mary Healy plays his mother and Peter Lind Hayes plays the wise plumber, August Zabladowski.
This movie is billed as a musical, it's not much of one, the songs seem as if they were tacked on to the rest of the production, however the movie is so good that even this cannot detract from it.
The DVD transfer is very good, much better than the earlier VHS transfers, there isn't much in the way of special features, just a trailer and some photo stills, but given the fact that this movie was made 50 years ago this isn't surprising. My only complaint about the disk is that the sound seems somewhat muffled in places, although free of the more objectionable forms of distortion. The scene with Peter Lind Hayes and Hans Conreid attempting to put a whammy on each other is sheerly fantastic.

Back to my Childhood!
One of the things I loved so much about the 5,000 Fingers of Dr T is I related to the Tommy Rettig character in that I also had to practice the piano every day. It's a wonderful window into the world of the child who is basically at the mercy of whatever his parents deem appropriate for him to do in his spare time. When I got older I appreciated being able to play the piano but I was not overly fond of it as a child. Tommy Rettig was one of the best child actors of the day, prior to Lassie. Hans Conreid makes a wonderful villain but the absolute best part of the movie is the incredible Seuss sets! There's a wonderful scene of an enormous piano, seemingly miles long, with acres of enslaved children feverishly pounding away on the keyboard...I still want a beanie with a hand coming out of the top, and I would love to have a room or two in my house designed just like the sets in the movie. From the first time I saw a Dali painting as a child I loved surrealism and there is an abundance of it in this movie. Totally unique from anything you've ever seen, a different excursion into the Seussian interpretation of a child's world trapped in a musical dictatorship. Although it was made in 1953 it translates beautifully into today by virtue of its fantasy; children still dwell in dreams part of the time!