Tony Randall makes faces on Blu-ray – and yet another IPTV Update

By Jim Bray
June 15, 2026

File this under guilty pleasures: George Pal's 1964 fantasy about an old Chinese circus owner who's a lot more than meets the eye. And my favourite IPTV provider is back! Sort of.

But first, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, a movie I saw in the theatres back in the day and which has stayed with me not only because of Tony Randall's tour de force performances, but because it's an ideal nerd movie.

And how can you not want to see Barbara Eden at the height of her powers, before she became America's favourite genie?

I don't know how much money 7 Faces made, but from the Blu-ray's box and other promo stuff I've seen, it appears to have been marketed wrongly by MGM (the disc, though, is from the Warner Archive Collection). "Bolt the Doors! Lock the Windows! Dr. Lao's coming to town" is the alarming advice for what is really a quite gentle and even humourous look at a small town about to be sold off to make room for a railway – long before Mel Brooks had a similar idea in Blazing Saddles.

Lao is no Blazing Saddles, but it's still a wonderful movie that came from the extensive catalogue of producer/director George Pal, the man who was behind such other sci-fi/fantasy outings as War of the Worlds, When Worlds Collide, The Time Machine and (I'll be reviewing this next one as soon as they get it to me!) Destination Moon.

Here, it's kind of a morality tale in which an old Chinese man shows up in Abalone, Arizona, a town whose residents are on the verge of selling out to local bigwig Clint Stark (played by Arthur O'Connell and, I'm confident, no relation to Howard or Tony of Marvel fame) who, unlike the rest of the townsfolk, knows property values will soar once the railroad comes through. And that's why he wants their land now.

Classic villain stuff, yet Stark really isn't much of a villain, and by movie's end he's practically sweetness and light – thanks in no small part to Dr. Lao and his circus.

Lao appears in town riding a donkey and giving no evidence that he's a P. T. Barnum competitor. Just the opposite, in fact. He's ancient and speaks pidgin English with a very thick Chinese accent (when he wants to…). But he wants to buy an ad in the local newspaper run by Ed Cunningham (John Ericson), who's one of the only guys pushing back against Stark's push to purchase the properties.

Lao is no dummy and it doesn't take him long to realize the fine residents of Abalone are about to get screwed royally. It also doesn't take him long to figure out the people themselves, their foibles and their dreams. And isn't he just the guy to fix things?

And this is where his circus comes in – as well as his seven faces. Each of his circus' performers has his/her/its special part to play in waking up the community as well as trying to give them a healthy dose of reality. The Great Awakening? Perhaps…

As it turns out, Lao is actually all the performers, all played by Tony Randall. He's the Abominable Snowman (basically a roustabout), blind fortune-teller Apollonius of Tyana (who tells only the truth, alas), Pan the half-goat god of joy (who helps Barbara Eden's character – a widow – find love again). I also believe he also voiced the giant serpent who straightens out one particular character, as well as Merlin the Magician (who really is magic!), and the snake-tressed Medusa (who shows a nasty piece of work how to become a real stoner).

And just in case anyone can't do the math, we also see Randall (as himself) as an audience member near the end of the film, before the big special effects finale involving the Loch Ness Monster.

The film earned a special Academy Award for William Tuttle's makeup (you won't recognize Randall in some of his characterizations), the first time such an award was, er, awarded. Another would be earned by John Chambers for the apes in Planet of the Apes (though the man-apes from 2001, in my never humble opinion, were better).

The special effects are typical of George Pal productions, which means they're state of the art for the time, and the performances are uniformly good.

The Blu-ray looks great! Detail is very nice and the colours are rich, with nice and deep black levels. Audio is DTS-HD Master Audio and it's about as good as one can expect from a comparatively small 1964 movie. I'm fine with it.

You even get a couple of extras. The first is the vintage featurette "King of the Duplicators" and is about William Tuttle and his body of work. There's also a Tom and Jerry cartoon directed by the great Chuck Jones of Looney Tunes fame. I've never been much of a T&J fan, considering it to be little more than mayhem a la the Simpsons' Itchy and Scratchy, but this one is pretty good.

You also get the original theatrical trailer.

I've been hoping for a good video release of 7 Faces of Dr. Lao for a long, long time and with this Warner Archive release, I finally have one. Now bring on the 4K version!

IPTV Update….

I recently reported that my favourite IPTV provider, IPTV.CA, had disappeared into the ether in the manner of other providers I've tried. I had just reupped for six months and they vanished with my money, though their website continues to be active.

Needless to say, I was angry. I love the concept of IPTV, which offers live TV, as well as thousands of TV shows and movies for very little money. It also lets you thumb your nose at the CRTC, which I find particularly appealing – especially since I can get all my IndyCar fixes from FOX network and their sports feeds, and thereby ignore Canadian media outlets as much as possible.

Since I want to stay with IPTV, I partook of another supposedly Canadian source when IPTV.CA went dark – signing up for only a month because I'm tired of my cash disappearing. The new service claims more channels, shows and movies, but since I only watch some 25 channels and already have an extensive library I couldn't care less if there are 40,000 channels available or 50,000.

And then, while I was in Ontario suffering under the smug and cruel yoke of being in the Centre of the Universe, I got an email from IPTV.CA telling me they were back and giving me a new URL for my playlist. Not only that, but they apologized for the outage and extended my contract to cover the time they were down.

There was no explanation given, despite my query, but the new URL works fine and I was able to mostly pick up shows where I'd left off (skipping ahead a few to account for my time with the other provider).

The past few days the EPG, the program guide for live TV channels, hasn't updated and I contacted IPTV.CA's folks to mention it. I've heard nothing back, which is mostly par for the IPTV course.

Anyway, I'm back with IPTV.CA and happy to be there. They're still the best I've used and I'll undoubtedly reupp when the time comes. My only issue will be to risk signing up for a longer term and risk having them go away again, in which case my money might as well go up in smoke, or paying a bit more to go month to month. Fortunately, I have a couple of months to see how the service is.

And if they do go away again, I now know of an alternative that, while not quite as good, will do in a pinch.