seasoningspice As a child I had a rampant imagination. As an adult I still do. Naturally it has been tempered and affected by adulthood itself, but I still remember what it was like to play pretend and go on wild journeys through my own thoughts. And out of all the children's movies I've seen, this one captures that experience the most accurately and brilliantly.Ultimately the plot is very straightforward: a boy hates learning piano and dreams of being trapped in a world ruled by his piano teacher, co-ruled by his well-meaning (but, to him, hypnotized) mother who believes learning to play an instrument will be good for him in the end, and inhabited by a lone friendly soul in the local plumber (or, as Hans Conried says, plumbah). He wants to rescue his mother, to regain a father figure in the plumber, and to defeat his teacher's tyrannical dictatorship, and he does all of the above. But truth be told, it doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. This is a story told through the eyes of a child.It's that childlike quality, and the simplicity of the narrative, that brings all the charm. There are no real plot twists, no real feelings of desperation and hopelessness, no moments in the third act where the main character sits alone in the rain thinking his goals will never be accomplished. Everything moves briskly, swiftly, and very entertainingly along.With one exception: the dungeon ballet sequence. I have to mention this because it singlehandedly bumped my score from a 9/10 to an 8/10. Not only does it drag on far too long, with development upon development, but it also looks and sounds and just plain feels like it came straight out of another movie. There's a sort of deranged hallucinatory atmosphere about everything, and hallucinations are still very different from childhood dreams or even childhood nightmares. The only thing tying the ballet to the actual content of the movie itself is the usage of everyday household items such as radiators in the dance - that's unique and innovative, but it doesn't save the sequence from itself. Perhaps it was meant to imitate something like the Pink Elephants On Parade sequence in Dumbo, but it just doesn't work.Otherwise, the best way I can describe this movie is by the word "sparkling". The performances, the surprisingly witty and natural dialogue, the music and songs, even the sets and the extras all sparkle. And as I mentioned before, there is never truly a sense of desperation; I watched fully aware that the heroes would get out of trouble, but not aware of how. For a sparkling adventure like this, that's the best kind of feeling.I also have to politely disagree with those who find Hans Conried's Dr. T. scarier than, say, the Wicked Witch of the West. To me his entire character speaks of a frantic scramble for power that he simply does not have; I personally got the impression that Dr. T. was actually a terrible pianist and was attempting to make up for this by lording it over as many students as possible! Not only that, but Hans' performance has something strangely endearing to it, a sort of childlike quality itself, right down to his proud surveying of his army during their song and the shocked moments of jealousy you see him go through as he watches Mrs. C. and the plumbah dance together. He's just as charming as the rest of the movie, to the point that it's a real shame to watch him suddenly disappear at the end. (But I admit I'm biased, as I'd take him over any of the Old Hollywood "heartthrobs".)In the end, despite how great the cut content may have been, I think the final product benefits all the same. Its simple charm and warm qualities don't make it cheesy or corny, because it comes from that child's point of view. When our hero Bart jumps from the top rung of a ladder miles above ground and untucks his shirt to let it act as a parachute, it comes across as the most natural possible development, because this is his mind we're seeing, right down to the wish for a replacement father to support and help both himself and his mother. It's relatable, funny, sweet, sometimes almost biting in its commentary (which makes me wonder how much more biting the original cut was), earnest, and somehow very real in the midst of total unreality.

flapdoodle64 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.

SnoopyStyle Bart Collins is haunted by Dr. Terwilliker's piano lessons. Even in his dreams, he's haunted by Terwilliker who has built a fanciful piano that will have 500 children or 5000 fingers playing it. He must save his widowed mother Heloise Collins from under Terwilliker's spell. The only person who might be able to help is the Collins' plumber August Zabladowski.Written by Dr Seuss, this has all his original visual styles. It is imaginative, creative, and hypnotic. The style is definitely 50s even with songs of sounds of the era. The acting has that childlike broad feel that is so fitting for a movie that takes place almost entirely in a child's imagination. The best is Hans Conried as the evil Dr. Terwilliker. His unique voice adds depth to his performance.

Michael Neumann The rich imagination of Dr. Seuss and the suburban daydreams of the early 1950s combine to make this one-of-a-kind musical fantasy more than just a perverse novelty item: rarely has a film captured so well the unique perspective and peculiar logic of childhood. Kids will no doubt identify with the young hero, an unhappy piano student who dreams of liberating, with the help of a handsome plumber, 500 boys held captive at the mile long keyboard of his maniacal music tutor, Dr. Terwillicker (played by Mr. Fractured Flickers, Hans Conreid). But only adults will appreciate the shear strangeness of it all: the surrealistic architecture; the outrageous and colorful costume designs; and the improbable song and dance numbers, with nonsensical lyrics only Dr. Seuss could have written. At times it almost resembles a nightmare vision of child anxiety, but the passing years improve the film by restoring to it the innocence of the age in which it was made.