Best picture?

Its b.s. because Wait Until Dark, and Cold Hand Luke were not nomantaed

FOX bought the Best Picture nomination with tons of promotional ads (they usually begin "For Your Consideration....") and by shmoozing Academy voters. The DR DOLITTLE Oscar nom really exposed the underbelly of the Academy. BTW, this film almost bankrupted its' studio!

By 1967, musicals were in their decline at the Academy Awards. Particularily the musicals in which words were sort of "spoken" in a song. This was at a time when old "Hayes Code" was finally on its way out.... and films with ratings as low as "X" were about to start winning Academy Awards (such as "Midnight Cowboy", which later had its "X" rating changed to an "R").

Granted, the following year the musical "Oliver!" did well at the Academy.... but musicals are few and far between after that.

I personally believe this original filming of "Doctor Doolittle" is far superior to the comedy remake many years later.... and that this movie should have garnered more nominations and awards than it received.





< It's never too late to do the right thing. >

Yes, it is unfortunately true. The main reasons for this are well-explained in other posts in this thread. Fox was losing millions on the picture and hoped that the the nomination would help stimulate ticket sales. In the end it proved the opposite effect since the fallout from outraged press and critics brought both Fox and the Academy into disrepute. The fact that this bloated, simple-minded, pink sea snail of a movie shared the same honor as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and especially two of the era's most influential pictures, Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate is far too sad to be laughable. The Academy's reputation suffered for a number of years afterward and it took the great films of the 1970s to finally restore some of its credibility. (As for choosing Rocky as Best Picture over ATPM, don't even get me started).

Y'all take it easy now, this isn't Dallas this is Nashville.

It is true and it was one of the biggest Oscar embarrassments ever. This is one of the 2-3 worst Best Picture nominations ever. It was nominated at a time when studios bought nominations even more blatantly than they do now.