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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 9780790746111
Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0790746115
Item Dimensions: 20
Label: Warner Home Video
Languages: EnglishOriginal LanguageDolby Digital 2.0EnglishSubtitledFrenchSubtitled
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
MPN: WARD65172D
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: October 03, 2000
Running Time: 100 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: March 18, 1964
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
A mysterious traveling circus unleashes a torrent of magic and mysticism in a dusty arizona town. Tony randall charms and spellbinds as ringmaster dr. Lao and his multitude of faces. Special features: subtitles in english and french new digital transfer original theatrical trailer and much more. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/31/2005 Starring: Tony Randall Run time: 100 minutes Rating: Nr
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This movie is an exception to the rule that the book is always better. It seems that the book was only an inspiration for this movie, which is a much more powerful "pheerosophicaree" than the "The Circus of Dr. Lao." For those of us born in the late fifties, the sounds and images of the "7 Faces" pulls us instantaneously into a time machine. We are suddenly six and seven years old again -- a very vulnerable condition for the spiritual ride we are about to take. In the end, Dr. Lao's simple chastisement to Mike... "Every time you pick up a handful of dust, and see not the dust, but a mystery, a marvel, there in your hand" ...is as corny as it gets and as true as anything you'll ever know. Dr. Lao is about everything that is happening today. It is about dark cynicism that threatens our society -- embodied in Clint Stark's assessment of life:
Clint Stark: I was like you once, long time ago. I believed in the dignity of man. Decency.
Humanity. But I was lucky. I found out the truth early, boy.
Ed Cunningham: And what is the truth, Stark?
Clint Stark: It's all very simple. There's no such thing as the dignity of man. Man is a base,
pathetic and vulgar animal.
This is the eternal debate of human kind, captured in a cartoon-esque dialog between archetypal rubes... a perfect way to speak to us all, from both "red states" and "blue." The dialog identifies the extremes, making the boundaries of our human despair clear and unimpeded to reason. This clarity allows us - all of us grown-up seven-year-olds - to fall - plop - into the fairer middle territory where we are more human. Even though the angry and judgmental faces we've acquired through day-to-day interactions with our inner morons will not be satisfied today, we must suspend our hatred of all that lives in favor of seeing how we really are.
And then there is the truth - Apollonius of Tyana - an actual historical figure who some say was the template for writings of another sage (known as Jesus of Nazareth). He is represented to us as the stern countenance preparing our minds at yet another level within what might have better been described as "The Meditation of Dr. Lao." We are given a view of that which we know too well, the regularity, the normalcy, the boring and daily tedium of our experience, captured and summarily wrestled to the ground, then submitted for our inspection in the pathetic emotional writhing of the actress Lee Patrick who as Mrs. Cassin faces the blistering realities of her life in Apollonius' caldron of the soul:
Apollonius of Tyana: Tomorrow will be like today, and the day after tomorrow will be like the day
before yesterday. I see your remaining days as a tedious collection of hours full of
useless vanities. You will think no new thoughts. You will forget what little you have
known. Older you will become, but not wiser. Stiffer, but not more dignified. Childless
you are, and childless you will remain. Of that suppleness you once commanded in your
youth, of that strange simplicity which once attracted men to you, neither endures, nor
shall you recapture them.
Mrs. Cassin: You're a mean, ugly man!
Apollonius of Tyana: Mirrors are often ugly and mean. When you die, you will be buried and
forgotten, and that is all. And for all the good or evil, creation or destruction,
your living might have accomplished, you might just as well never have lived at all.
You and I live in fear that we shall meet our own Apollonius. And the meaning is simple - we live our lives in the darkness created of our own idiotic aspirations, comparing ourselves to what we perceive to be our failures. The truth is simply that we live and we have upon our living to reflect and understand - but few appear to weather the intensity of that simplicity without a great deal of existential angst - which is the soul of Apollonius and Mrs. Cassin' interaction.
The extremity of the philosophical "debates" in "The 7 Faces" leaves us open and empty again, watching the adults for cues as to what comes next. It gives us the realization of our own frailty, and diminishes the expectations of ourselves that somehow we should have mastered all this stuff by now. We can allow the "living clowns" of Hollywood act out the drama in which we are ourselves living at this very moment. And so finally we must conclude: The world is as it was, and probably will be for all time - and therein is the miraculous world of Dr. Lao. And, as the carnival barker once said, "Like the philosopher Mencius said, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!'"
Rating:  -
If you enjoyed the original novel The Circus of Dr. Lao, you probably won't enjoy The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. And if you didn't enjoy the novel, you probably won't like The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. There is some great make-up in the old theatrical tradition, and the special features has a short documentary on the creation of make-up from the period of the film. However, this probably isn't worth owning the whole movie. Part of the problem is that the novel is a little transgressive, while the film transmits none of this quality. E.g., in the scene where the satyr seduces the school marm, the book is visceral, physical, and erotic, whereas the film is timid, clueless, and uncomfortable. This film could stand a re-make today, but they would ruin it with overdone CGI.
Rating: -
By today's high tech movie magic standards this movie is an antique... yet, it's one of the most fun movies I've ever seen. I was nine years old the first time I saw "Seven Faces Of Dr. Lao" at the theater and I've seen it several times on T.V. over the years and I've owned it twice before on DVD. Both of those copies I gave away to friends who'd never seen it before but fell in with it during their first viewing. The DVD version I just bought from Amazon... I'm keeping.
Rating: -
My favorite scene of this warm, wonderful fantasy/allegory is when Mike tells Dr. Lao that he's, '...not so young'. This has been my favorite kid's movie since I saw it as a nine year old when it was released. I was heart-broken when it lost to Mary Poppins in the Academy Awards.
Tony Randall uses his far-reaching learnedness of show business and dialects, from Time Square Pitchmen to Chinatown restaurateurs to Texas County Fair Emcees. Tony grew up in Tulsa a few blocks away from my father and cut his show biz teeth in New York and needed to synthesis every bit of this background to produce the various faces and most of all the mysterious character, Dr. Lao.
Many professional critics dismiss the movie itself and site Randall's tour-de-force performance as the only worth of the film. I disagree. The story of Lao and his reflective circus is another one of those stories that, like Forbidden Planet, goes right over adults heads and rings true in the hearts of children. Plus, there are so many effective scenes. I think we've all felt a bit of Barbara's heat when being serenaded by Pan or Mrs. Cassan's psyche reading or Merlin's redemption or any one a dozen others. I suppose some might find it cloying but I don't.
$5.79 is the price at the time this review was written and that's a great price! If you know any children or people the have retained some heart and open-mindedness then this would be a great and inexpensive addition to their DVD library.
I digress for a moment. I'm thinking that it's possible that John Ericson could have been a better replacement for Jeffery Hunter than Bill. Hey, it's just a thought.
Oh, and the question of whether it seven or eight faces. Well, he never did actually play either of the serpents, though, one could always read between the lines.
Rating:  -
It had its good moments, but could be a little stupid as well - the whole "Bonanza style" old west town smacked of 50's Hollywood sensibilities. The preachiness of the characters, the cliched "good son" of the "hot-yet-reservered widow" (Barbara Eden) and "the man who loves her" who is also the town newspaperman trying to stop a big businessman from buying the town. It kind of made me sick at times, how sappy some of the scenes were, especially between the little kid and Dr Lao. And the newspaperman and the widow, though Barbara Eden WAS beautiful.
The film doesn't generate a huge amount of interest until a good half hour into it when Dr Lao's circus finally opens. The circus and the acts within are the redeeming feature of this movie: the blind Greek who told the brutal truth; the Medusa; the Snake with the face of the businessman; Merlin the Magician; and the faun who played "Pan". Incidentally, if I remember correctly, most of these characters were Tony Randall IN DISGUISE, something I didn't realize until watching the special features documentary which is half interesting.
Overall the movie had moments of imagination, but still felt more 50s than 60s (okay, it's an "early 60s movie" - made in 1963).
Tony Randall's performance of 'Chinaman', Dr Lao, was kind of a joke in itself - white guys playing Chinese in the movies were more common in Hollywood 50 years ago I guess. Someone won awards for the make-up work.
About production of the DVD, the color print could have been a little better, though it's watchable. A snap-case edition presented in full screen, the film itself retains a dated 'TV production' look and obviously hasn't been remastered in high-resolution. Thankfully English subtitles were included (French as well). As mentioned there's a small behind the scenes documentary. Actually, I was more content with the quality of the DVD than the movie itself which was just a little cheesier than I had hoped for. Whatever.
It wasn't awful but it wasn't great. Personally I wouldn't recommend it, but it does work as another oddity in my DVD collection.
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