Search - The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T on DVD

MPAA Rating: G Content Advisory: Excellent For Children Movie Release: 1953 DVD Release: 04/24/2001 Format: DVD - Pan and Scan Audio Tracks: English, French, Spanish Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 32 mins Studio: Columbia TriStar Members Wishing: 15 Genres: Fantasy, Children's/Family, Children's Fantasy, Musical Fantasy

Ted Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, wrote and helped design this eccentric fantasy about a young boy named Bart (Tommy Rettig) who, like most young boys, doesn't enjoy his piano lessons with the mean-spirited Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried). He figures his time would be better spent playing baseball with his friends or helping his grown-up buddy Arthur Zabladowski (Peter Lind Hayes), a plumber. One night, while fast asleep, Bart has a long and remarkable dream in which he's trapped in the kingdom of the fearsome Dr. T, who has enslaved hundreds of little boys, forcing them to practice on the world's largest piano until they drop. With the help of a friendly plumber, Bart plans a revolt that will topple Dr. T's evil empire once and for all. The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T also features several songs for which Geisel contributed lyrics. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Peter Lind Hayes - August Zabladowski
Mary Healy - Mrs. Collins
Hans Conried - Dr. Terwilliker
Tommy Rettig - Bart Collins
John Heasley - Uncle Whitney

This is a five-star-quality release of a movie so good and so strange that it is off a lot of people's ratings scales. One of the most delightful children's films ever made, and one of the most beguiling fantasy films ever to come out of Hollywood, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T has had about the nicest thing happen to it that can be imagined -- Columbia-TriStar Home Video has released a DVD that looks as good as the restored theatrical print that this reviewer saw in 1999. Based on a story and screenplay by Dr. Seuss (aka Theodore Geisel), this was the oddest of the fascinating body of movies that Stanley Kramer produced at Columbia Pictures in the early to mid-'50s. It's a wild ride across a landscape of musical and musically inspired fantasy, all told through the dreaming of a lonely boy who doesn't want to practice the piano. Along with The Wizard of Oz (and surpassing Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), it's a movie that is completely absorbing in its vision of fantasy -- and, like The Wizard of Oz, it was never understood at the time of its release, only acquiring its large cult following through television showings, especially once color television became common in the late '60s.
The colors look so clean, bright, and solid that the viewer just wants to plunge into the screen -- this disc will be a serious favorite among owners of big-screen monitors. The audio is a match for the picture, with a robust, rich sound that fairly leaps out at the listener. There aren't any particularly special "special features" to the disc, but the movie is more than enough given the price. One does wish, however, that Columbia could have interviewed Kramer or, better yet, Dr. Seuss while they were still with us for use in a secondary audio narration about the production (though neither was happy with the way the movie came out), especially as The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T just missed being part of the Criterion Collection on laserdisc back in the early '90s. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide