It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953) – Musical #783

Studio:
Columbia Pictures

Director:
Roy Rowland

Starring:
Tommy Rettig, Hans Conried, Peter Lind Hayes, Mary Healy, Jack Heasley, Robert Heasley, Noel Cravat, George Chakiris (uncredited)

Plot:
While 10-year-old Bart Collins (Rettig) hates piano lessons from his strict instructor Dr. Terwilliker (Conried), but his mother (Healy) loves the piano. While Bart is practicing his piano, he dozes off and has a terrible, surreal dream where Dr. Terwilliker is running a prison-like school where he wants 500 boys (hence: the 5,000 fingers) to play a giant piano at the same time. All the while, Bart’s mother is kept under a trance. In his dream, Bart enlists the help of kindly plumber August Zabladowski (Hayes) to help Bart, his mother and all the students to escape.

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