DOCTOR DOLITTLE (1967)
A Dull Musical that Doesn't Justify Its Existence
Grade: D+
**Spoiler Alert!!**
For decades there were times when a hugely successful motion picture prompted studios to create similarly themed movies to capitalize on its popularity. The success of Star Wars (1977) led to a string of science fiction adventure movies; the success of Jaws (1975) led to a string of creature features. And in the mid-to-late 1960s, the runway success of The Sound of Music (1965) led to a string of big-budget musicals, one of which was the Rex Harrison vehicle Doctor Dolittle. Based on a series of books by Hugh Lofting, the movie faced terrible production troubles and ultimately failed at the box office-and looking at the movie today, it is not hard to see why. Although not entirely without merit, Doctor Dolittle is nowhere near as fun or inspiring as a film coming off the heels of The Sound of Music ought to be.
Set in 1845 England, the movie follows the adventures of Dr. John Dolittle (Harrison), a former M.D. turned veterinarian who learned how to talk to animals in their own languages with the help of his parrot, Polynesia. Dolittle now has his sights set on finding the legendary and colossal Great Pink Sea Snail, and soon acquires the money to buy an expedition ship after entering a rare Pushmi-pullyu (a llama with a head on either end of its body) in the local circus. After a series of misadventures, he heads out to sea with his friend Matthew, a young boy named Tommy Stubbins, and a lady named Emma Fairfax. Their voyage eventually brings them to the wandering Sea-Star Island and its inhabitants.
Doctor Dolittle is fairly underwhelming in terms of story, characters, and even music. None of the songs are very memorable, nor are they really essential. Mostly, they are interruptions. For example, during the trial that ultimately has him sentenced to an asylum, Dolittle delivers a song about how cruel to animals people are. Does it change anything? No, it doesn't. The judge has him sent away without a moment's hesitation. The entire sequence was entirely pointless.
If the songs had been better made or a little more energetic, they might have justified their place in the film. But with the exceptions of "My Friend, the Doctor" and "I've Never Seen Anything Like It In My Life," most of the songs are either very soft and passionless or are just inexplicable. In the first category, Dolittle is usually talking in rhyme while music plays on the soundtrack more than he is actually singing. In the second category, Emma's first song comes a mere minute after her introduction, half an hour into the movie: she has just had a big argument with Dolittle and Matthew, and all of a sudden she goes on a long rant about how she wants adventure and the harm she would inflict on Dolittle if she were a man. If she had been introduced earlier in the film, the song would be less jarring.
The story is a series of artificial motivations and nonexistent payoffs. No reason is given why Dolittle should search for the Great Pink Sea Snail, nor does the script adequately explain how Tommy became such good friends with Dolittle that he would join him on the voyage. When Dolittle is about to be taken to the asylum, Matthew's exciting-sounding plan to break Dolittle out with elephants and dynamite is shut down by Poly, who carries out her own, less entertaining (but still admittedly amusing) plan of telling the horses of the police not to follow Dolittle.
The movie also sets up a love triangle of sorts between Dolittle, Emma and Matthew, but not only is there very little time devoted to building chemistry between the three of them, but it is never resolved; she ultimately doesn't profess her love to either one of them, nor do they know that the other likes her. And the ending itself is also anticlimactic; when Dolittle is flying home astride a giant moth (he couldn't go back with his friends, since he was a wanted man), the movie just stops. There is no happy reunion with his friends, no final musical number, nothing. The film just freezes with the moth over England and the credits roll as a children's choir reprises "My Friend, the Doctor."
Every now and then, some genuinely humorous moments are felt in the movie. The funniest bit comes in a flashback explaining how Dolittle became an animal doctor, which contains some outrageous slapstick right out of a Three Stooges short. This reviewer was laughing out loud when a vicar with a broken foot kept getting it hurt, a lady with a mouse phobia kept screaming, and Dolittle's long-suffering sister finally reached the end of her rope. The inhabitants of Sea-Star Island also provide some clever humor; upon first meeting them, audiences are led to believe they are typical, mindless savages, only to learn that they are actually intelligent from studying books that have washed ashore, and their ways of life are dictated by a book the chief (named William Shakespeare X) has. Several bizarre things happen on the island that the book coincidentally addresses (the island drifts into the arctic and a balanced stone falls into a volcano) and the visitors must pay for them. When they have to die a "Death of Ten-Thousand Screams," the natives are reluctant but bound to their law, and the characters' underreactions to their impending executions (They are later released after the island miraculously drifts back into the mainland) add to the silliness. These moments keep the movie from being a complete waste of time.
Doctor Dolittle is not a terrible film, but it is not very good, either. The songs either needed to be more energetic or cut from the movie altogether, the story required more work, and there is just not a whole lot of passion or investment from the cast or the crew. Some of these problems could be blamed on the issues the production faced, but blaming doesn't change the perception that, aside from some legitimately funny moments, the film does little more than merely exist.
Director: Richard Fleischer
Producer: Arthur P. Jacobs
Screenplay: Leslie Bricusse (Based on the "Doctor Dolittle" books by Hugh Lofting)
Cast: Rex Harrison (Dr. John Dolittle), Samantha Eggar (Emma Fairfax), Anthony Newley (Matthew Mugg), Richard Attenborough (Albert Blossom) Peter Bull (General Bellowes), Muriel Landers (Mrs. Blossom), William Dix (Tommy Stubbins), Geoffrey Holder (William Shakespeare X)
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