Young Bart Collins (Tommy Rettig) lives with his widowed mother Heloise (Mary Healy).

The bane of Bart's existence is the hated piano lessons he endures under the tutelage of the authoritarian Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried).

Bart feels that his mother has fallen under Terwilliker's influence, and gripes to their plumber, August Zabladowski (Peter Lind Hayes), without result.

In the dream, Bart is trapped at the surreal Terwilliker Institute, where the piano teacher is a madman dictator who has imprisoned non-piano-playing musicians.

The enslaved boys run riot, and the "atomic" noise-sucker explodes in spectacular fashion, bringing Bart out from his dream.

The movie ends on a hopeful note for Bart, when Mr. Zabladowski notices Heloise and offers to drive her to town in his jeep.

Bart escapes from the piano and runs down the street to play, with his dog Sport joyfully capering at his heels.

Columbia Pictures released the film a second time in 1958 with the entire elevator scene cut, under the title Crazy Music.

Theatrical cut: Original "preview" version: At the Hollywood premiere, the first patrons began to trickle out after 15 minutes.

The leading man Hans Conried was quoted as saying by biographer Suzanne Gargiulo, "At the end there was only one boy left and he was waiting for his mother to pick him up".

Hans Conried reflected on the film's box office failure in a 1970 interview with Leonard Maltin: "The picture never made its print money back.

It was comparable only to Wilson as one of the great money-losers of all time; it would stop conversation for some years at any Hollywood social gathering.

In 2002, Peter Bradshaw said the film "has charm, a riotous imagination, and some very weird dream-like sets by production designer Rudolph Sternad and art director Cary Odell"; it's "surreal, disturbing, strong meat for young stomachs.