Doctor Dolittle

There are notoriously few children’s films that have cracked into the Oscar’s Best Picture nominations, and none that have actually won the award. The Academy Awards has a reputation for honoring serious films, big-budget spectacular epics, and smaller films that tackle social injustices or other important topics. What it doesn’t have a lot of is films about talking animals; Babe from 1995 being a rare exception, one that left me scratching my head when I reviewed it quite a while ago. 1967’s Doctor Doolittle is another exception, and until this morning, I was mostly unfamiliar with this film. I say mostly because I discovered while watching it that I recognized some scenes, especially in the finale, that led me to accept that my parents must have sat me in front of it at some point in my youth. 

Doctor Doolittle has something that Babe doesn’t have, though. It has scale. This film has a degree of grandiosity lacking in the little movie about a pig on a small farm learning how to herd sheep and avoid the butcher’s blade. It also doesn’t actually have talking animals—with the exception of a parrot—like I was expecting. This is not like the more recent adaptations with Eddie Murphy or Robert Downey, Jr where a slew of celebrity voice actors play the verbal side of the animals. Instead, we are shown that Doctor Doolittle (Rex Harrison) was taught how to speak the languages of all these animals from a parrot and thus converses with them in their native tongues. It’s a silly and absurd concept, but then so is the idea that the good doctor just happens to be able to communicate magically as he does in the latter films. 

This character was introduced to the world by author Hugh Lofting, whose series of books caught the eye of Hollywood producers as early as the 1920s. It wasn’t until the early 1960s, though, before the rights could finally be secured, and an attempt was made to bring the character to life. Unfortunately, translating this to the big screen proved more difficult than anticipated, and it languished in development hell for years, passing through various writers, producers, and studios.  Eventually, it ended up with 20th Century Fox, with Rex Harrison in the lead, and filming finally commenced. 

But the troubles didn’t end there. Rex Harrison was reportedly difficult to work with, causing significant delays in the production when he changed things during production, including insisting that his musical numbers must be sung live rather than the traditional method of prerecording and lip-syncing. Harrison’s contract gave him an unusual amount of latitude, too, which almost ended with Christopher Plummer taking over the role. Plummer was even contracted at one point and would be paid out in full to pave the way for Harrison to resume his part. 

All told, it was a frustrating experience getting this film off the page and on the screen, but you wouldn’t know it watching the finished project. What finally debuted in the winter of 1967 is just as lavish as many of the other big musicals of the time. That’s not to say it is as much of a delight to watch as something like My Fair Lady or Hello Dolly. Those films were more sophisticated, aimed for all audiences, though the youngest of the family might get a bit restless. Doctor Dolittle, however, is firmly in the camp of children’s entertainment. This is the kind of film I might have enjoyed more had I been ten watching it. At fifty, I was finding great moments of it that felt overlong and plodding. It is based on several of the Hugh Lofting books, rather than just one, and the consequences of that are a film that feels disjointed, spliced together rather than of a whole. 

Doctor Dolittle is, by his own admission, not a people’s person. This is aided by the choice to put Harrison in this role. He was only a few years past playing Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, where he was equally inept at personal interaction. That baggage carries over to this, too, as he comes across as openly disdainful of people in general. The primary exceptions seem to be Matthew Mugg (Anthony Newley) and his young friend, Tommy (William Dix). Matthew brings us up to speed on the good doctor, including how he can apparently talk to animals. We are then treated to a rather lengthy flashback that explains how that happened. 

The story kicks off properly when Dolittle is provided with a Pushmi-Pullyu, a kind of two-headed llama, as a means to raise money to fund an expedition to search for the legendary Great Pink Sea Snail. This brings them to a nearby circus run by Albert Blossom (Richard Attenborough), where the Pushmi-Pullyu becomes the star attraction. Money is raised, Dolittle is arrested when his rescue of a lonely seal is mistaken for murder, and eventually Dolittle, Mugg, Tommy, and the newly joined Emma Fairfax (Samantha Eggar) escape and set sail for the floating island where the Great Pink Sea Snail is rumored to be. 

The seams are evident throughout this picture. It is based on The Story of Doctor Dolittle, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, and Doctor Dolittle’s Circus. While the producers have done a decent job splicing these stories into a coherent narrative, there is no disguising that this is more than one story stitched together. Other films have done similar patch-jobs such as the Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson The Adventures of Tin Tin and even Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins. Those films, however, have done a much better job of hiding the seams. Here, while the narrative does flow into a singular plot, there are very distinct chapter breaks where the film is jumping to the next book.

Ultimately, while the production is lavish and the settings are beautiful, this film struggles to feel of a whole. Instead, it’s a mishmash of plot elements that begin to sink this ship. There is just too much plot shoved into a bloated runtime. The childlike simplicity of the story is weighed down by an excessive runtime and, despite the massive amount of story crammed into it, the pacing feels slow and plodding. This is not one of the better examples of the epic movie musicals of the 60s. Instead, it is a film that exists as a curiosity that, for me at least, falls heavily on the side of one-and-done. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Arthur P. Jacobs

Best Art Direction: Mario Chiari, Jack Martin Smith, Ed Graves, Walter Scott, and Stuart A. Reiss

Best Cinematography: Robert L. Surtees

Best Film Editing: Samuel E. Beetley and Marjorie Fowler

Best Original Music Score: Leslie Bricusse

Best Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: Lionel Newman and Alexander Courage

Best Song: “Talk to the Animals” Music and Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse (won)

Best Sound: 20th Century Fox Studio Sound Department

Best Special Visual Effects: L. B. Abbott (won)

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Release Date: December 19, 1967

Running Time: 152 minutes

Rated G

Starring: Rex Harrison, Samantha Eggar, Anthony Newley, and Richard Attenborough

Directed by: Richard Fleischer