FANTASIA OBSCURA: The Seven Faces of Felix Unger
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, we’re not sure what we’re looking at, but we need to keep watching this…
7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)
(Dist.: MGM; Dir.: George Pal)
The history of genre films cannot be written without George Pal’s contributions getting their due.
George Pal was responsible for many of the major films that make up the canon, having produced When Worlds Collide and the first The War of the Worlds for Paramount in the early 1950s. His production of the ambitious but financially disappointing Conquest of Space led to the end of Pal’s relationship with Paramount, who had worked with him since 1940 when he set up his Puppetoons for the studio and to his working with MGM where he produced and directed Tom Thumb and The Time Machine.
Come 1964, Pal was ready to take on another ambitious project, an adaptation of the novel The Circus of Dr. Lao from 1935 by Charles Finney. What resulted was one star playing seven roles as members of a troupe that challenges the citizens of a small Southwestern town.
Sometime in the near-ish past, the town of Abalone is looking at potential disincorporation as it faces the threat of its water pipe collapsing soon. Faced with this disaster, the richest man in town, Clint Stark (Arthur O’Connell), is offering to buy everyone out for reasons he keeps to himself, which the newspaper publisher and printer Ed Cunningham (John Ericson) challenges out of civic pride.
His campaign to save the town is failing as badly as his efforts to woo Angela Benedict (Barbara Eden), the widowed librarian and single mother of Mike (Kevin Tate), a woman who cannot bring herself to feel for anyone ever again.
Among these and the other residents of the town, all with their own issues as well, comes Dr. Lao (Tony Randall), an entrepreneur originally from China who makes a two-night stand in town to show off his acts. His show includes Merlin the Magician (Randall), Pan (Randall), Apolonius of Tyana (Randall), Medusa (Randall), the Giant Serpent (animated for Pal by Jim Danforth, voiced by Randall), and the Abominable Snowman (credited to Randall, but supposedly played by Pal’s son Peter; as Randall plays one of the townsfolk with his actual face in one scene, however, he still retains credit for doing seven roles), who challenge the good citizens to be a bit more self-reflective, such as when Angela encounters Pan:
While Randall is in fine form as all of the fantastic cast, it may be harder for modern audiences than those at the film’s release to sit through his Dr. Lao, whom some might consider an act of “yellowface.” Interestingly, Randall’s Lao speaks in a faked Chinese accent for less than a fourth of the film; often his diction will either be very pronounced and scholarly, using many of the mannerisms and patterns he’d bring to his Felix Unger on The Odd Couple years later, or slip into a French, Scottish or German accent easily.
It can be concluded that Lao is trolling his marks the whole time, as one scene of him dropping the accent involves him alone in his trailer trying to feed a cricket; it can be presumed that he puts on the accent as part of the act to manipulate the townspeople more easily and get them to part with their preconceptions and pay attention.
While Randall puts in exceptional service, over and above everyone’s expectations (especially Pal’s, who had originally sought Peter Sellers for the seven roles), credit has to also go to the main talents behind the effects work. William Tuttle got special recognition from the Academy Awards for his having so completely transformed Randall for each role, work that got the Academy’s attention decades before there was a Best Make-Up category for consideration.
Also of note was Jim Danforth’s stop-mo creations, which unfortunately did not get official notation in the credits, much like many of his post-When Dinosaurs Rule the Earth work would end up being.
The cast facing the fantastic were also quite memorable. Many of the players work well in sharing their foibles and weaknesses before Lao’s ensemble, and Eden’s portrayal of a woman rediscovering her deep passion showed a side of her talent that she’d be prevented from displaying during her stint on I Dream of Jeannie and other roles on network television.
But it’s O’Connells’ Stark that’s of particular note, a man driven bad by cynicism, hoping that he could find a good reason to stop being evil:
Unfortunately, audiences couldn’t find a good reason to come to the theaters for the film. What reviews one can find from the time, such as Howard Thompson’s from the New York Times, were not kind, and a month after the film came to theaters, the family audience it courted went instead to Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins. Much like Lao himself and his circus, the film disappeared into the sunset, leaving little trace it was ever there.
The film would ultimately find an audience, but not before Pal’s stock in Hollywood would dwindle thanks to the bath the studio took on Lao. Pal would never get a chance to mount another serious production, save for 1975’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze; he died in 1980 before he could produce such projects as the acquired film rights to Olaf Stapledon’s Odd John, the original option for the novel Logan’s Run, and sequels to both When Worlds Collide and The Time Machine.
Much like the Merlin portrayed by Randall in the film, Pal found at the end of the day that he had to remind the audience that he does magic, or he did once at least.
NEXT TIME: What drives us to stay beautiful and successful? We’ve seen sleaze balls try to deal with this question, but what about good folk?
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