The first five or ten of this Dr. Seuss-scripted musical are pretty corny, almost unbearable. But then it gets weird. And then it gets even weirder. And just when it seems like it can't get any weirder, it makes the leap into the Truly Fucked Up. (This occurs in the elevator down to the dungeon, for those playing at home.) Although nominally a kid flick, Seuss, co-writer Allan Scott and Rowland seem preemptively bored by the notion of something saccharin, and so the wafer-thin tale of a boy looking for a father figure (he has two choices, Hans Conried as the pompous Dr. T or Peter Lind Hayes as Mr. Zabladowski, a friendly-if-wary plumber) is often sidelined for whatever visual flight of fancy overtakes their imagination (with the help of production designer Rudolph Sternad and art designer Cary Odell). How about an impossibly tall ladder to nowhere? Maybe a piano constructed in one continuous, wavy piece, big enough for the eponymous 5,000 fingers (belonging to Dr. T's students/slaves)? Oh, and let's not forget mom's crazy costume, half-gown, half-business suit -- what better way to illustrate her divided attentions, between her life and her son? (This is also the closest live-action film has ever been to translating the Seuss visual sensibility into reality -- not that it's any surprise, but Ron Howard's How The Grinch Stole Christmas looks pathetic in comparison.)
And even when it swings back to the story at hand (kid actor Tommy Rettig is tolerable, at best), Rowland handles it with an adult sense of charm and insouciance -- Lind Hayes is wonderful here, muttering bon mots and getting down to Rettig's level without the kind of mugging you expect in these kind of things. Truly one-of-a-kind, without any real equivalent -- so it's no surprise that it was a box office failure.
Where we saw it: tv | We deign to rate it: 85 outta 100