This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

They messed up on the title.It's 4000 fingers and 1000 thumbs.OK, interesting movie due to Dr. Seuss back story and Svengoolie showing.Otherwise, very sad.

Here in the 21st Century, I'm not sure who this film's proper audience is, besides cinephiles. The protagonist is a kid, a fact which will turn off many adult viewers. At the same time, there are some amazingly elaborate and artistically choreographed dance and acrobatic sequences, prefiguring Cirque du Soleil...the complexity and wonder of which might be lost on kids. (I also wonder if kids' attention might wander during these sequences...)I am, of course, a cinephile now, but was I at age 10, when my brothers and I watched this back in the 1970's, broadcast by a UHF TV station out of Youngstown, Ohio? Because we liked this film then. Would today's kids, fed a steady diet of video games, MTV and R-rated movies like this film? I doubt it, but you never know.My 21st Century cinephile self recently re-watched this film, after 40 years, finding it to be beautiful and frightening. It is a clever mix of Suessian imagery and the anxieties of childhood (which adults remember better than we admit) contained within the forms and conventions of the 1950's Hollywood musical. The cast is excellent, particularly the dancers, but credit should be distributed all around. Mary Healy is very sexy as Bart's mother, and her real-life husband, Peter Lind Hayes, portrays the kind of adult every kid wishes he knew. Hans Conried, at what turned out to the pinnacle of his career, is perfect. Even Bart, played by Tommy Rettig is good (child actors are often very hard to stomach). Almost the entire film is an extended dream sequence, showing life for a young boy inside a surreal fortress of mandatory piano lessons, and where strict, autocratic order is enforced by a legion of uniformed, thuggish soldiers. Very obvious to my adult self, it is a commentary on authoritarianism and totalitarianism, in the world of an American child. It is interesting to consider that the year of this film's release, 1953, was the peak of the Senator Joe McCarthy witch-hunts. The following year, theocratic authoritarians successfully pressured the US Congress into mandating the phrase 'one nation under God' into the Pledge of Allegiance, which was itself an oath forced upon millions of schoolchildren 5 days a week. Among many memorable moments is a solo titled 'Because We're Kids,' containing this verse: 'Now just because your throat has got a deeper voice, And lots of wind to blow it out, At little kids who dare not shout, You have no right, you have no right, To boss and beat us little kids about...'So, as I said before, this film will not be 'accessible' to everyone. But to those of us for whom it is, there are rewards.

Bart Collins (Tommy Rettig) hates playing the piano. His egotistical piano teacher Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried) insists he perfects his art for an upcoming performance that will prove Terwilliker the greatest teacher. Bart drifts off into a sleep, where he dreams of an alternative world where he is imprisoned in Terwilliker's castle, who also has Bart's mother Heloise (Mary Healy) under his control in a trance-like state. Terwilliker forces Bart to practice on his giant piano where he plans to capture 500 children to perform all at once. The only person that Bart can turn to is plumber August Zabladowski (Peter Lind Hayes), who Terwilliker plans to execute once he has finished his sink installations.Children's author and illustrator Dr. Seuss is a national treasure in his native U.S., yet here in the UK, his work is less known and loved. Works like How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat have been made popular by recent Jim Carrey and Mike Myers movie vehicles, but I went into this film not really knowing what to expect, with this being Dr. Seuss' sole movie writing credit. Dr. T. plays out like The Wizard of Oz (1939) with less colour, campness, and much more imagination. The songs that Seuss wrote for the film are instantly forgettable, so the film works less as a musical, and better as a rather strange and twisted children's fantasy.The sets are the film's main strength. From the start, which has Bart fleeing from a group of men with different coloured nets in a barren, futuristic and industrial landscape, to Terwilliker's gigantic piano hall, the film is rich with imagination. I can only assume the set designers were influenced by German expressionism, as it immediately brought Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920) to mind, all jagged angles and exaggerated features. Dr. T is occasionally ridiculous, but the film's heart and playfulness make it a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and features a surprisingly annoying-light central performance by young Rettig.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

And to me that's saying quite a lot. Horton Hears a Who was surprisingly good, The Grinch I thought was better than its rep but I liked it more when I was 10 than I do now(the animated version is a classic though) and Cat in the Hat was an abomination. I did think that Dr Seuss worked better as shorts/short films, somewhat being too thin structurally for feature lengths.The 5000 Fingers of Dr T proved me wrong. It is a visually dazzling movie, with inventive cinematography, brightly coloured costumes and stunning sets and backdrops. The music and songs range from plaintive(Because We're Kids), to hilarious(the Dressing Song) to bizarre(the Dungeon Dance) and I love the witty lyrics and the melodies delightful whether crazy or not. The 100 Pianos rendition is wonderful.Choregraphically, particularly with the Dungeon Dance, it is all very spirited. The script is full of funny and scary moments, with the wit of Dr Seuss still evident, and while the story is nightmarish at times and wonderfully surreal, it is always incredibly imaginative too. The characters intrigue, with the disturbing Dr T most memorable, and the acting is great.Tommy Rettig is appealing, as are Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy, but it is the marvellous titular-role performance of Hans Conreid that dominates the film. All in all, a great film and by far the best of the feature films based on Dr Seuss' stories. 10/10 Bethany Cox