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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant movie, May 20, 2004
The day after Tony Randall passed, I pulled out my DVD of "The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao," one of the oddest movies in Randall's long career. It's also one of my very favorite movies of all time.The plot is pretty simple. Dr. Lao, a strange Chinese gent, comes riding into the dying town of Abalone, Arizona on a yellow donkey. A catfish in a bowl rides behind him. He comes into town to stage his circus. His arrival comes at an interesting time. Clinton Stark, the town entrepreneur, is at loggerheads with newspaper publisher Ed Cunningham. Stark has just made an offer at a town meeting to buy out all the property in town stating that the water main is collapsing and the town doesn't have enough money to repair it. However, Stark's real motive is that the railroad will be coming through town and he can turn a mighty profit on selling the land to the railroad. The townsfolk are just about ready to sell out; Stark's offer sounds good and Abalone is in the middle of nowhere. Editor Cunningham is suspicious, and so is Angela Benedict, the town librarian. Ed's in love with Angela, but she's still wearing her widow's weeds for a husband eight years dead. Into all this rides Dr. Lao, who sets up his circus...a circus of the mind where no one who walks through the tent flap remains unchanged. I will tell you this: this is a corny movie, and everything does turn out all right in the end. The special effects won an Academy Award in 1964, but they are stop-motion effects (from director George Pal) and the makeup and effects are limited by time and place. And yes, there's a kid and even a dog. Don't hold that against this film. In its defense I will say thatit was written by Charles Beaumont, the writer responsible for a number of classic Twilight Zone episodes. And there are more than a few edgy and even frightening moments here, far more than anyone should expect from a "family" movie in 1964. For example, the completely frivolous Mrs. Cassin goes to visit the seer Apollonius of Tyana to get her fortune read. Mrs. Cassin's character is that of a beauty past her bloom, a snobbish, gossipy and silly old lady who still fancies herself the belle of a long-forgotten ball. Having her fortune read is a lark to her. She ventures into Apollonius' tent. The first time you see Tony Randall as Apollonius, you think, "Oh jeez, Tony Randall in a blonde wig, mustache and beard." Yes. True. But his face. Randall's Apollonius looks infinitely old, infinitely tired. In essence the corny-ness of the makeup is destroyed by the way Randall holds himself and speaks. In spite of yourself, you find yourself believing that this is an infinitely old and sad man who sees the future, and maybe doesn't want to. Mrs. Cassin, flustered by Apollonius' faraway attitude, eventually ends up taunting him. Her true nastiness emerges as she finally says, "I paid you! go on then, tell my fortune!" In one of the most chilling moments in the movies (and I will defend that statement), Apollonius tells her: "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...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." Randall says this without judgment or malice, in an infinitely sad and infinitely empty tone. If you do not feel the icy wind of fear across your soul when you watch this, you're not paying attention. Mrs. Cassin rushes out of the tent weeping. When Angela Benedict, the Librarian, finds her, Mrs. Cassin's face snaps back to its usual phony cheerfulness, and she chirps, "Oh, it was quite interesting. Do you know, he told me that I shall marry Mr. Stark!" Ah, Angela Benedict. Angela is played by Barbara Eden. A young and quite luscious, brunette, Barbara Eden. Before Jeannie. Benedict is clinging to her widow's weeds to avoid the attentions of Ed Cunningham, to avoid rejoining life. And Angela Benedict ventures into the tent of Pan. Yes, Pan. the Great God Pan. Once again the shortcomings of the makeup(according to our modern technology) are overcome. Pan begins to play his pipes and dance around Angela. She loses her balance. The music gets wilder. The tent is gone; we are in a forest. She loses her focus. Her schoolmarm's dress becomes undone at the neck. She sweats. Her hair falls out of its bun. Pan's likeness changes; he looks like Ed Cunningham, but Ed Cunningham with horns and hooves, half-naked, powerful, laughing, taunting her, enticing her. There's no sex, not even a kiss at the end of this scene; only a very young and very, very beautiful Barbara Eden clinging to a convenient tent pole, or is it a tree in the forest? coming undone, sweating, gasping, and completely under the spell of Pan. And again, if you don't find this scene intensely erotic, you're not paying attention. In short, folks, even though this film is corny and has technical flaws according to our 21st Century standards, it is far outside the boundaries of 1964, and touches on things that no other movie has. Suspend your disbelief and see this movie. I will leave you with this, from a scene where Dr. Lao is talking to Mike, who is Angela Benedict's son. "Mike, the whole world is a circus if you look at it the right way. Every time you pick up a handful of dust, and see not the dust, but a mystery, a marvel, there in your hand - every time you stop and think, 'I'm alive, and being alive is fantastic!' - every time such a thing happens, Mike, you are part of the Circus of Dr. Lao."
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DVD ~ Mary Healy
DVD ~ Rod Taylor
by Charles G. Finney
DVD ~ James Mason
DVD ~ Michael Rennie
