One of the worst movies to be ever nominated for the Best Picture, “Doctor Dolittle” tried to cash in on the popularity of Rex Harrison, who two years earlier had won the Best Actor Oscar for “My Fair Lady.”
The result was a high-budget musical that’s clumsy, inept, and ultimately banal, wasting the talents of all concerned, in front or behind the camera.
Fox shamelessly campaigned for its crass movie and managed to get nine nominations, though mostly in the technical and musical categories, and excluding Best Director or Best Actor.
Despite multiple Oscar nominations, this big-budget dud almost destroyed its studio, Twentieth Century Fox.
The movie was remade in 1998 with Eddie Murphy in the title role.
Oscar Alert
Oscar nominations: 9
Picture, produced by Arthur P. Jacobs
Cinematography: Robert Surtees
Art Direction-Set Decoration: Mario Chiari, Jack Martin Smith, and Ed Graves; Walter M. Scott and Stuart A. Reiss
Sound: Fox Sound Department
Scoring of Music (Adaptation or Treatment): Lionel Newman and Alexander Courage
Film Editing: Samuel E. Beetley and Marjorie Fowler
Song: “Talk to the Animals,” music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse
Special Visual Effects: L. B. Abbott
Oscar Awards: 2
Song
Special Visual Effects
Oscar Context:
In 1967, “Doctor Dolittle” competed for the Best Picture Oscar with Arthur Penn’s Depression era crime saga “Bonnie and Clyde,” the comedy “The Graduate,” Stanley Kramer’s interracial drama-drama “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” and Norman Jewison interracial policier, “In the Heat of the Night,” which won Best Picture and Actor.
One of the weakest films to be nominated for Oscars, “Doctor Dolittle” lost in most of its categories, including Art Direction and Scoring, which were given to Alfred Newman and Ken Darby for “Camelot.” The Original Score that year was won by Elmer Bernstein for the Julie Andrews musical vehicle, “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”