Dr. T and the Woman
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1953)
directed by Roy Rowland
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Early on - let's say before Dr. Seuss left the set in a huff - Dr. T is as red, white, and blue as Hollywood or Bust and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Young Bartholomew Collins watches helplessly as his widowed mother tries to make nice with the socially respectable piano dandy who teaches the neighborhood pre-adolescents to play the keys. Why can't she pick someone sensible, Bart asks, like August the all-American plumber? Because it's 1953, I guess, when anarchists' short pants got run up the HUAC flagpole, and even a closeted quasi-intellectual celebrity was a better father for Joe McCarthy's well-rubbed elbows than the sucker with the wrench and slop bucket beneath the kitchen sink. But the boys know best, and Seuss and Stanley Kramer were liberal enough to see it. The weird isn't as weird as I wanted it to be, but then, I'm not a kid.
directed by Roy Rowland
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Early on - let's say before Dr. Seuss left the set in a huff - Dr. T is as red, white, and blue as Hollywood or Bust and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Young Bartholomew Collins watches helplessly as his widowed mother tries to make nice with the socially respectable piano dandy who teaches the neighborhood pre-adolescents to play the keys. Why can't she pick someone sensible, Bart asks, like August the all-American plumber? Because it's 1953, I guess, when anarchists' short pants got run up the HUAC flagpole, and even a closeted quasi-intellectual celebrity was a better father for Joe McCarthy's well-rubbed elbows than the sucker with the wrench and slop bucket beneath the kitchen sink. But the boys know best, and Seuss and Stanley Kramer were liberal enough to see it. The weird isn't as weird as I wanted it to be, but then, I'm not a kid.
posted by NPK at 9:17 AM
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