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Gary T on Dr T and his 5,000 fingers.

Oh, and CineOutsider as well.

MichaelB wrote:Gary T on Dr T and his 5,000 beavers.

Fixed.

knives wrote: Sun Mar 01, 2020 3:59 am The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (dir. Rowland)
Dr. Seuss' war on Dick and Jane continues with a lively if totally kitsch film whose loss of identity is part of the fun. I wouldn't argue that this works entirely because there seems to be a lot of unease with how to transfer Seuss to live action. If only Chuck Jones could have been given the keys to the kingdom, but I guess the world needed to wait for The Phantom Tollbooth to get a Jones feature length Seuss.

Back to complimenting the film though, despite its problems it does paint a compelling portrait of youth with Tommy Rettig looking like a Seuss character while also having a sort or ironic air to his performance which works really well in selling this as an anti-suburbia fantasy. Looking up on the film's history it sounds like originally it had more of that before Stanley Kramer had to take a dump on the fun. Some things naturally shine through though such as Hans Conreid's amazing Basil Rathbone impression perfectly representing '50s petty oppression. If just a bit more of that survived the process perhaps this would be a great film rather than only an interesting one.

I was more mixed on this one the first time, and while I agree that it doesn't work completely I was able to give the film more slack on a rewatch. Especially this "anti-suburbia fantasy" plays a bit more like an organized Wizard of Oz where the characters from the boy's life who aren't servicing his needs get to be assigned clearcut roles that align with his projections of them and harmoniously collaborate to support him in less free association but instead constructed with some agency. This is like a lucid dream if that was an uncontrollable symbolic nightmare, which I like better because it reminds me of relatable daydreams as the only escape of gaining control through fantasy as a child when you have such little power over your surroundings. I also admired how Bart's dreams aren't as grave as solely revolving around these adults validating his worth but equally, if not moreso, geared towards fulfilling his interests. If just the former it would be another classic tale of feeling small and craving affirmation, but Bart also just wants to get his way and manipulate adults to get on his level of immature fun. It's a very honest and just as valid account of the acceptable selfish sources of these dreams, and pretty bold to be played that way. He even outright lies to his hero at the end and sneaks off to play ball after promising to practice! An old supervisor of mine said it’s a kid’s job to pull one over on adults. This film celebrates that in an embrace of Seuss’ similar vision.

As for the presentation, well it could be more imaginative in its narrative progression though the visual manifestation in the silent scenes mimic playground adventures just fine. The "non-piano players" dungeon is such a hilarious gag of inverted verification of his real-life annoyances that he gets a ghoul to disregard that piece of identity for him, and I'm sure there are plenty of other defense mechanisms popping up as externalized characters here that I'll catch upon rewatches. This might be more psychological through bizarre optical expressions, and thus Dr. Seuss-like, than I thought!

My favorite gag though is

Spoiler

the masked dungeon elevator operator who sings an ominous song about the tortures that await them, as Bart and his plumber surrogate father stare at him with animated confusion and fear, and the evil Terwilliker stares off in the other direction into space unphased. The ironic methodology mismatching the content combined with aloof deadpan is like if Tati made a loony tunes cartoon.

I watched the Indicator release with handful of friends at closed movie theatre and it stood really well on big screen. I lolled most at the masked dungeon elevator keeper, but the siamese-bearded roller-skate detectives were so surreal action premise that it takes the cake for me. There just must be an early Yen Woo Ping movie that has used a similar gimmick!

This seems to be the closest we have to a Dr. Seuss thread so I’m placing my question here.

We were looking for a collection of the television specials for the kids, in particular Daisy Headed Mayzie, and found this amazing looking one. It seems out of print though. Is there an in print disc for the specials that is as solid a collection as that?

knives wrote: Thu May 29, 2025 5:49 pm This seems to be the closest we have to a Dr. Seuss thread so I’m placing my question here.

We were looking for a collection of the television specials for the kids, in particular Daisy Headed Mayzie, and found this amazing looking one. It seems out of print though. Is there an in print disc for the specials that is as solid a collection as that?

This set, Hat's Off To Dr. Seuss Collection, looks to still be in print on DVD (or cheaper at Hamilton Book, but the Blu-Ray version is OOP and very expensive. I think it includes all the specials that WB distributes, other than some follow up Grinch stuff like Halloween and Grinches the Cat and the Hat which I think have been moved over to only as bonus features on Special Editions of Stole Christmas.

Thanks. Greatly appreciated although it is sad that the Blu-ray version is OOP.

paulm wrote: Thu May 29, 2025 6:08 pm

knives wrote: Thu May 29, 2025 5:49 pm This seems to be the closest we have to a Dr. Seuss thread so I’m placing my question here.

We were looking for a collection of the television specials for the kids, in particular Daisy Headed Mayzie, and found this amazing looking one. It seems out of print though. Is there an in print disc for the specials that is as solid a collection as that?

This set, Hat's Off To Dr. Seuss Collection, looks to still be in print on DVD (or cheaper at Hamilton Book, but the Blu-Ray version is OOP and very expensive. I think it includes all the specials that WB distributes, other than some follow up Grinch stuff like Halloween and Grinches the Cat and the Hat which I think have been moved over to only as bonus features on Special Editions of Stole Christmas.

Shame that doesn’t have Ralph Bakshi’s incredible Butter Battle Book

The Cat in the Hat Meets the Grinch from the early 80’s is stunningly awful lunacy