The 5000 Fingers of Dr T

The 5000 Fingers of Dr T can barely contain its multiple fascinations within the 'kids' movie' format, attempting as it does to make explicit the connections between dreams, surrealism and psychoanalysis. Using the child's fantasy structure of The Wizard of Oz, it's the tale of nine-year-old Bart (Rettig), who resents his piano lessons and projects teacher Terwilliker (Conried) as an authoritarian madman bent on mesmerising his mother, killing the friendly plumber, imprisoning all other musicians, and enslaving 500 little boys at a giant keyboard to rehearse his own masterpiece for eternity. There's enough colourful whimsy here to divert a young audience; but also enough pop Freud and political allegory to keep even the most compulsively note-taking adults happy. And with a couple of musical routines that come close to defining camp, this awesome entertainment really does have something for everyone.