Doctor Dolittle (1967)

My entire adult life (I’m currently 53), I’ve always considered my three favorite films from childhood to be Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Doctor Dolittle. Since having children of my own (currently 5 and 8), we’ve watched Wonka and Chitty repeatedly as a family, and my daughters seem to love those films as much as I do. With the new Robert Downey Jr. version of Dolittle coming out, I figured it was high time we all watched the 1967 original, which we did last night. And what an eye-opening disappointment it was. For one thing, unlike Wonka and (most of) Chitty, Doctor Dolittle is slow and boring. Sure, Chitty is also long and has a few slow moments, but they pass quickly. The 1967 Dolittle, on the other hand, is tedious from start to finish and will bore the pants off most children. Also, the music isn’t nearly on a par with the other films, despite the contribution of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, who later did such an excellent job with Willy Wonka. Even the songs that I remembered fondly, particularly Talk to the Animals, are marred by Rex Harrison’s borderline tuneless recitative style of talk-singing. The far more tuneful memories I had in my head of the songs must have come from having heard at some point different renditions, perhaps the Sammy Davis Junior versions. Most troubling of all was the terrible treatment of the female lead. who is forced to do menial labor on the sea voyage while the men lounge around, all to prove that she’s better than a lowly woman and almost the equal to a man. When my 5 year old daughter asked me “Why does she want to be different from who she is?” I felt I’d made a mistake in showing my kids the film without having first rewatched it with my wife to know what we were getting into. I’m not even going to go into the racist, stereotypical presentation of the African tribe, as it’s just an additional embarrassment added to an already embarrassing film. All of the forgoing might - might - be excusable if the film were moderately entertaining, but it’s not. Doctor Dolittle is a tedious chore to slog through. I highly recommend that any parents who are thinking of watching this with their young children based on fond memories of having done so in their own childhood rewatch the film first without the kids, as I wish I had done, to make sure they’re really okay with their kids watching it.

My daughter (6) really liked it. Fast forwarded through quite a few songs because of the time and length of the movie. But, she LOVED all the animals! Very cute movie!