Part western, part fantasy, this is the story of a strange Chinese man, played by Tony Randall, who drops in on a small town with his odd little "Circus of Dr. Lao". Arthur O'Connell plays a money-grubbing bastard who wants everyone to sell him their property so he can benefit from a railroad coming near town that
only he knows about. There's also a budding romance between widow Barbara Eden and the new newspaper man in town, While the appearance of Dr. Lao seems coincidental, he and his circus help to resolve these issues.
Director/animator George Pal held the reins here, and it had a bit of a Harryhausen feel to some of the animated sequences. While all the cast is satisfactory, Tony Randall really impressed me with his performance...or should I say performances? All the characters in the circus -- a fortune teller, a talking serpent, Medusa, a Yeti -- are played by Randall. I'm curioius as to why he ended up playing fey mincing types or whiny Casper Milquetoasts when he was apparently capable of so much more. A nice film for the family on a snowy afternoon.
February 17, 2010
