12/27/2023 0 Comments Great lunar moth doctor dolittleSo, an aggressive nomination campaign ensured that this flop has gone down in history as good enough to be nominated for Best Picture. As a result, the film was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture” According to the book Behind the Oscar, Fox mounted an unparalleled nomination campaign in which Academy members were wined and dined. A shorter edit of the film, previewed in San Francisco, was no more successful a still shorter edit, previewed in San Jose, was well enough received to be approved as the final cut. The general audience response rated it poorly, with frequent complaints about the film’s length. The audience consisted largely of adults, who were not the primary target audience. The film’s first sneak preview in September, 1967 in Minneapolis was a failure. “The film was originally budgeted at $6 million, but the final cost was triple that. So if it was such a ridiculous, terrible movie, why was it nominated for Best Picture? To answer that question, I’m going to quote excerpts from the Wikipedia article that explained it all. Of course, there was the Giant Pink Sea Snail, and lastly, the Giant Lunar Moth, large enough for Doctor Dolittle to ride it all the way from the magical floating island somewhere off the coast of Africa, back to his native England. It was just the kind of creature that would spark the imagination of a toddler. Along the way to achieving this goal, Dolittle and his companions meet several mythological animals like the Pushmi-pullyu: a llama with front halves of two llamas connected to each other like Siamese twins. The sorry-looking animatronic creature appeared extremely fake and poorly made for a movie with such a big budget. Unfortunately, when they finally do, it was a huge anticlimactic disappointment. The big goal of the plot? Why, to find the mythical Great Pink Sea Snail, of course. He spends years learning to speak their languages, revealing that all animals possess human level intelligence, and are all more polite than most humans. So when a sentient parrot introduces herself to him, he decides to treat animals instead. Apparently he was a terrible physician who grew fed-up with stupid people. The film begins by telling the story of the good Doctor. She allows everyone, especially the Doctor, to treat her horribly, and then inexplicably falls in love with him anyway. And lest I forget, Samantha Eggar, playing Emma Fairfax, the overly-independent young woman who is cross with everyone. His supporting cast included Anthony Newley as Matthew Mugg, a shiftless Irish stereotype, and Tommy Stubbins, played by child actor William Dix, an annoying little boy whose main purpose in the film was to look cute. The movie starred Rex Harrison as the title character, Doctor Dolittle, an eccentric man who loves animals so much, he has no problem romantically kissing a seal. Again, a 4 year old child would probably enjoy all the flights of fancy and fantastical imagery. The plot is so strange, at times downright stupid, that it was almost embarrassing to watch. But as an adult, I found it to be bizarrely farcical and ridiculous. Where do I start? Well, for one thing, the film would have been just fine if I had been between the ages of 3 and 6. Cute for the sake of cute is never cute… never! The acting was bad, the plot was predictable, the special effects were poorly done, the songs were monotonous and unmemorable, the pacing was slow and plodding, the overall message was ridiculous, and on top of all that, they broke the cardinal rule of movie-making. I’m sorry to say it, but this was a terrible movie musical. No! The run time is NOW!” They try to make a break for it but are forced back into their seats with water from a fire-hose. ![]() To paraphrase a line from the Simpsons episode entitled, “Cue Detective”, when the students of Springfield Elementary are forced to watch Doctor Dolittle, one of them says, “The movie’s run time is 152 minutes.
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