1978 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN – ON THE ISSUE FREAKS OF NATURE… ODDITIES OF BIRTH in… A TRIBUTE TO FILM PARANOIA!! AT THE ROXIE THE FIVE THOUSAND FINDERS OF DR. T

1978
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN – ON THE
ISSUE FREAKS OF NATURE…
ODDITIES OF BIRTH in…
A TRIBUTE TO FILM PARANOIA!!
AT THE ROXIE
THE FIVE THOUSAND FINDERS OF DR. T Made
in 1953 in color, Hollywood’s and the fifties
forgotten fantasy that is probably the strangest
film ever made with a beginnings, middle and
end, in that order. It is also the only feature
film ever made of Dr. Suess’s work and actually
had his collaboration.

The dream (substitute for plot) involves a
young boy (Tommy Retig of Lassie, recently
sent to prison in the 70’s for cocaine possession)
who is forced to take piano lessons from Dr.
Terwilliger (played with incredible zest and
nastiness by HANS CONREID). The boys parents
(Peter Lind Hayes & Mary Healy) won’t listen
to his pleas of mercy and he is forced to escape
to a world of dreams in which his mother is
under the evil teachers spell and his father
must be convinced that she must be rescued.

Even in his dream he is not safe from the piano
lessons that take place is a huge football sized
field with bleachers as never ending keyboards
circling fortress Terwilliger and he ultimately
must make his escape thru underground
dungeons, in which all the other little boys
that resisted music lessons are eternally
doomed and have mutated into the instrument
that they despise the most, (playing themselves
for eternity.) This scene alone is worth the price
of admission and is beyond belief, as is Dr.
Suess’s thinly disguised comments on children’s
oppression and the adult world of authority,
coercion and ‘if it hurts, it’s good for you”
mentality. Even the paranoid fifties thought this
film was too-much and besides- it was paranoid
of the wrong things!

Dr. T will be shown at 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. It
will be more difficult to understand if even the
first few minutes are missed…so come early.

AND AT NO EXTRA COLST……CATCH AS CATCH
CAN Made in 1969 in Italy, color. A truly
unknown film, in fact, it is not even commercially
available in the United States and unless your
response is as ecstatic as we imagine, it probably
never will be. So be sure and tell the Roxie
Management, who have also never seen either
of these films (or even heard of them) that it
must be resurrected!

Vitorio Gassman plays an Italian actor of tv
commercials, whose arrogance, masculine ego
and horror of dirt, the outdoors and anything
not antiseptic compels all of the animals,
insects, fish, and birds within a five mile radius
to try to destroy his disdain and mistrust of his
own animal and to crack his ego and arrogance
once and for all. If you think that is a bizarre
idea for a plot (and we won’t quibble, it is) wait
until you see the results when he is driven to
madness and BEYOND. See it at 8 & 11 p.m.

Everyone who previewed this film said they
thought it was THE funniest film they ever saw
in their life. So ladies and gentlemen, decide for
yourself in our offering of (possibly) the strang-
est film ever made AND the funniest film ever
forgotten in a true tribute to PARANOIA IN THE
CINEMA. AND THANKS TO THE ROXIE FOR
MAKING THIS BENEFIT POSSIBLE.

“Anything that does not kill me
makes me stronger”
– F. W. Nietzsche

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