Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Doctor Dolittle Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 20, 2017

Several years ago when I reviewed the 1970 musical version of Charles Dickens’ immortal A Christmas Carol, Scrooge, I impertinently asked if Leslie Bricusse single-handedly killed the film musical (at least for a little while). I give a little background on Bricusse in my Scrooge Blu-ray review for those unacquainted with his name, but for years Bricusse was largely maligned for having crafted a trifecta of (in some folks’ opinions) overblown and misguided screen musicals, including Scrooge, 1969’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips and the film currently under review. In a way, it’s almost incredible that Bricusse was ever able to offer screenplay, music and lyrics for anything after Doctor Dolittle, since it was one of the crowning box office disasters of its era. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and ask a perhaps even more impertinent question than if Bricusse single-handedly killed the film musical, by asking if perhaps The Sound of Music killed the film musical, as odd as that may sound. In some of my previous reviews like my A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Blu-ray review I’ve documented the kind of weird fact that after the triumph of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic in 1965, the film musical went into a rather spectacular dive that no one really could have predicted. But 20th Century Fox seemed to be especially prone toward bad decision making in the wake of its own incredible success with The Sound of Music, with Doctor Dolittle being just the (chronologically) first example in a series of flops that included Star! and Hello, Dolly!. Kind of hilariously, at least for those who enjoy reading about the vagaries of studio excesses, it was The Sound of Music that had saved Fox from its previous flirtation with bankruptcy, albeit one caused by a non-musical, in this case the notoriously expensive Cleopatra. With The Sound of Music not just erasing the deficit caused by the Elizabeth Taylor film, but filling the coffers to previously unimaginable heights, it probably seemed like a sure bet to greenlight a mammoth musical based on a beloved source that seemed to offer whimsy and fantasy galore. So. . .what went wrong?

There are some who allege Doctor Dolittle’s spectacular failure was simply a matter of bad timing, with a gargantuan “family musical” coming out just as the cultural zeitgeist was beginning to change in favor of edgier fare. Except — how then to account for 1968’s overwhelmingly successful film version of Oliver!, which not so coincidentally also won that year’s Academy Award for Best Picture? Oliver! may in fact have been a bit “grittier” than Doctor Dolittle, as befitted its Dickensian source material, but is it really possible to argue that Doctor Dolittle and Oliver! would have appealed to radically different demographics?

Though it perhaps only brings me back to that original hypothesis I proffered when discussing Scrooge, I have to lay the bulk of Doctor Dolittle’s shortcomings on Mr. Bricusse, though perhaps not with regard to his score, which is largely charming (aside from some overconvoluted and unnatural “recitatives” leading into the “real tune”). It’s Bricusse’s screenplay which tends to weigh down Doctor Dolittle, taking way too much time on needless sidebars before it finally gets to what should arguably be the focus of the film, Dolittle’s hunt for a so-called Great Pink Sea Snail. Instead, Bricusse fills the film with needless padding, often seeming to structure things simply so that a song can be inserted, even if any given song doesn’t really move the story along in any meaningful way. The film therefore tends to flit from vignette to vignette without any overly powerful through line. Some of the vignettes are enjoyable enough, but the entire film feels frayed and at times almost slipshod (how odd is it that Bricusse inserts a very long flashback sequence documenting how the good doctor came to “talk to the animals”, rather than starting with that element in “real time”?).

The film is just kind of a lumbering behe-moth (not to be confused with a Giant Lunar Moth, but I digress), but it does offer a sumptuous physical production and some winning performances. Bricusse’s score is probably best remembered for the Oscar winning “Talk to the Animals” (a statuette many critics have alleged was a “consolation prize” to a desperate Fox so that they could market the film as an Academy Award winner), but there are a number of nice songs in the film, including the lovely ballad “When I Look in Your Eyes” (which Rex Harrison famously sings to a doleful seal) and a nicely done “list song” documenting a number of locales, “Fabulous Places”. One of the glories of this film are the stunning orchestrations by Lionel Newman and Alexander Courage. (While Newman and Courage were nominated for their work, Lionel’s brother Alfred took home the “song score adaptation” Oscar that year for another less than successful film musical, Warner Brothers’ Camelot).

Doctor Dolittle Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Doctor Dolittle is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.20:1. This large format (Todd-AO) offering, reportedly culled from a new 4K scan off the original camera negative, looks largely fantastic on Blu-ray, with impeccable detail levels offering nearly palpable views of the film's continually impressive costumes and sets. Even elements like animal fur are rendered with precision and accuracy. The increased resolution does tend to put the "lie" in some effects work, including some of the obvious tank work when Dolittle and his entourage are briefly "shipwrecked", as well as some old school matte and compositing elements. The palette looks nicely saturated, but my one minor qualm with this transfer is some very slight variances in temperature. A lot of the film is beautifully warm looking, but there are occasional moments that look a bit on the gray side, with a just slightly cooler look. The fine grain field looks natural and resolves without any issues.

Doctor Dolittle Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Doctor Dolittle features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track recreating its original (70mm) 6 track theatrical exhibition. Aside from some very brief and fairly minor amplitude variances (typically at what I'm assuming are the start ups for pre-records), this is a great sounding track, one that preserves the nicely immersive sound design of the film while also rendering all of the musical elements with clarity and excellent fidelity. The orchestral forces are especially resplendent sounding, perhaps because none of the principals are exactly what you'd call a great singer (Newley probably comes closest, but he has one of those vibratos so wide that you could drive a truck through it, something that is not to everyone's taste). Dialogue and effects are all rendered cleanly and with excellent prioritization on this problem free track.

Doctor Dolittle Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Rex Harrison: The Man Who Would Be King (480i; 44:10) is a good overview of Harrison's life, culled from the old Biography series, and featuring a lot of great interviews, including with his son, Noel.


• Original Theatrical Trailer (480p; 1:38)


• Isolated Score Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.


• Audio Commentary features Leslie Bricusse and Mike Matessino.

Doctor Dolittle Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Regular readers of my reviews know I'm something of a musical nerd, and I have always been a huge fan of Leslie Bricusse, either in his guise as a multi-hyphenate "solo" artist, or in any of his vaunted collaborations with other musicians. Those interested might want to check out Bricusse's other 1967 film work, which includes great lyrics for everything from the title song of You Only Live Twice, to one of my personal favorites, the charming bossa nova waltz (yes, there are such things) "Your Zowie Face" from In Like Flint, a song — and score, by Jerry Goldsmith — I spent quite a bit of time talking about in our In Like Flint Blu-ray review. Bricusse's score for Doctor Dolittle is often incredibly charming, but his screenplay could have used some significant pruning and arguably even restructuring. This is one supposed "family film" I have personally seen bore the pants off any number of children, but from a production design standpoint, it's frequently outstanding. Technical merits are first rate for those considering a purchase.