Stills Without Frills: "We should always believe children. We should even believe their lies!": The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T

In 1953, Columbia Pictures had the bright idea to bring in Dr. Suess to write and design a major motion picture. What came of this experiment was Roy Rowland's The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, possibly the most whacked out, psychotic musical of all time.

The film starts with a dream sequence in which our hero, Bart, is being menaced by these crazy guys with spotlights on their heads. It sets up a generally paranoid feeling that permeates the film. It's sort of reminiscent of a prison break film, but told from the perspective of a precocious, imaginative child. This brings sense to the bizarre, expressionistic set design.

Much of the structure of the film is obviously influenced by The Wizard of Oz. A young protagonist is trapped in a boring home life where adults dismiss him. He escapes into a dreamy musical fantasy, but finds that his dreams are just as dangerous and frightening as real life. A good portion of the film is just Bart attempting to get away from his pursuers and lights following him as he runs. It's full of paranoid images, and it seems to be a forgotten Cold War-era musical.

I don't want to spoil these images with commentary, but I think the production design and costuming is fantastic.Think The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but made as a technicolor musical. Totally brilliant design work and, if nothing else, it's an original looking film. Like Saul Bass and Phase IV, it's a shame Suess never got the chance to make more live action features. I think that with a bit bigger of a budget he might have made something really splendiferous.