7 FACES OF DR. LAO (1964)
Article 2211 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-5-2007
Posting Date: 9-1-2007
Directed by George Pal
Featuring Tony Randall, Barbara Eden, Arthur O’Connell
The residents of a small western town are about to sell out to an unscrupulous land speculator when they are visited by a mysterious Oriental character known as Dr. Lao, who invites them to enjoy his circus.
This is one of the most charming fantasies I’ve ever seen, and it is one of my favorite George Pal films. For some odd reason, I don’t think the movie should work; with its shifting moods, I sense it should come across as unfocused, but this is not the case. For what seems on the surface to be a light-hearted movie, it occasionally shows a power and a darkness that is devastating; the scene where the vain middle-aged woman visits the fortune teller only to be told the naked truth about herself is so sad it’s hard to take, and the scene where the librarian encounters Pan is so overwhelmingly (but not explicitly) sexual that it’s hard to believe that it’s in a movie that is fit for children. Part of the reason it works so well is the excellent performance from Tony Randall, who plays most of the circus characters and whose accent changes with the situation; he’s breathtakingly energetic and a joy to watch. The movie is filled with other memorable performances from such familiar names as John Ericson, Noah Beery Jr., Minerval Urecal, John Qualen, and Royal Dano. The movie has a real magic to it, and sometimes the way events transpire is amazing; I love the scene where the audience is terrified by the parable of the story of a town that is destroyed by its own greed and then suddenly find themselves sitting at a town meeting in the library where they themselves must vote on the fate of their own town. Great special effects also help, some of which are the work of Jim Danforth. I do wonder about one thing in the story; each of the members of Dr. Lao’s circus has a strong effect on at least one of the townspeople, with the sole exception of the Abominable Snowman, who only appears in snatches. This makes me want to read the Charles Finney novel on which the movie is based to find out if something involving the Snowman was cut from the movie version of the story. At any rate, I consider this one of George Pal’s finest moments.
Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings 
As long as I can recall it’s been one of my favorite films. It reaches me on deeper levels than any of Pal’s other films, as much as I love War of the Worlds and even The Time Machine. You’re only right about those shifting tones; as familiar as I am with the film I was surprised recently by a friend’s response to my urging that he show it to his children, an 11 year old boy and 7 year old twin girls. He had watched Pan’s erotic dance in an attempt to seduce Barbra Eden which almost succeeds, and was disappointed in my judgment. And I understand him; the scene’s heat is so unlike everything else in the film. As I’m a fan of Finney’s novel I can tell you that no, the Abominable Snowman isn’t in it. It features a great many more fantastic characters than we find in the film, though; a sphinx, a mermaid, a unicorn, etc. It’s far less structured than Pal’s movie, being less a narrative than a series of loosely connected events in the way of Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine and The Martian Chronicles. It’s far darker and more meditative than the film. Pal’s Merlin the magician replaces Finney’s Apollonius of Tyana, who creates a living turtle from a handful of mud in one of the sadder moments. The animal has two heads, embarrassing the old miracle worker into apologizing for being so feeble.
Quoting Finney:
“Oh, that’s all right,” said the plumber. “I guess them things are kinda hard to make right anyway.”