In 1963, producer Arthur P. Jacobs acquired the rights and recruited Alan Jay Lerner to compose songs and Rex Harrison to star in the project.

[3] Although the film received negative critical reviews, it was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture, at the 40th Academy Awards, thanks to intense lobbying by 20th Century-Fox,[4] and won Best Original Song and Best Visual Effects.

The doctor talks with a sad seal named Sophie and learns she longs to return to her husband at the North Pole, so he smuggles her out of the circus, disguises her in women's clothing to convey her to the coast, and throws her in the ocean.

The party is soon captured by the island's natives who they learn are highly-educated and cultured from reading books that have washed ashore after innumerable shipwrecks and often name their children after their favorite authors.

Their chieftain is William "Willie" Shakespeare the Tenth who explains that his tribe blames newcomers for its misfortunes, and the tropical island is currently drifting north into colder waters, which has given all of the animals colds.

In exchange for curing its cold, the Great Pink Sea Snail agrees to carry Dolittle's friends back to Britain in its watertight shell as it wants to visit its cousin the Loch Ness Monster anyway.

Emma wishes to stay on the island with Dolittle and search for the Giant Lunar Moth, a creature that flies back and forth between Earth and the Moon, but he says he is not good with people so she says she will miss him and kisses him goodbye.

Jacobs met with the Loftings' attorney, Bernard Silbert, and expressed his intentions to produce Doctor Dolittle as a musical with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and actor Rex Harrison attached.

[15] After not producing a complete draft of the screenplay in over a year, Lerner, who was more focused at the time on his work on the Broadway musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, was fired from the Doctor Dolittle project on May 7, 1965.

[16] Jacobs considered replacing Lerner with the Sherman Brothers, who had just won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for their work on Mary Poppins (1964), but they were still under contract to Disney, so he hired Leslie Bricusse, who was in high demand after his success with the stage musical Stop the World – I Want to Get Off.

Determined to make a good impression for his first screenplay commission, Bricusse proved agreeably productive from the start for Jacobs, suggesting numerous story ideas and adding a female leading character to the film during their first meeting on May 6.

[17] By July, Bricusse had written a full script, including various song suggestions, that effectively blunted the book's racist content, and his adaptation received the approval of Josephine Lofting.

For the role of Matthew, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye were among those on the shortlist, but Bricusse's sometime-songwriting partner Anthony Newley was ultimately cast, which angered Harrison, who had suggested David Wayne.

Harrison later showed contempt for Bricusse's script and lyrics and demanded to sing live on set, rather than lip-syncing to pre-recorded tracks, and he left the project at one point.

All signs of modern life in Castle Combe, such as cars, television antennas, and Coca-Cola promotional signs, were removed or hidden, which irritated the locals,[29][30] and, in an attempt to raise publicity for how the village was being treated, British Army officer (and future explorer) Ranulph Fiennes even attempted to blow up a concrete dam built by the production to block a stream.

This location had its own issues, and problems related to insects and frequent tropical storms delayed filming and left eight crew members bedridden due to vomiting, diarrhea, and high fever.

[39][40] At one point, ducks were placed in a lake, but did not have their water-repellent feathers, as it was the wrong time of year, so they began to sink, and crew members had to jump in the water to save them.

[42][43] In October, as the film's release date approached, Helen Winston sued 20th Century Fox for $4.5 million alleging that the plot point about animals threatening to go on strike on Dolittle's behalf was plagiarized from her screenplay.

As Bricusse had read Winston's script and, assuming this idea was from one of Lofting's books, included it in his treatment, the producers had no legal defense and were forced to settle out of court.

[46] The song "Talk to the Animals" was recorded by such artists as Bobby Darin, Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie, Jack Jones, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and Andre Kostelanetz.

[49][50][51] A cover version of the same song by the Shiny Lapel Trio was used in a 2008 Christmas television commercial campaign for the United States retail chain Kohl's.

[52][53] In November 2017, a 50th Anniversary Expanded Soundtrack was released by La-La Land Records as a lavish 2-CD set that included numerous demos, rehearsal takes, and alternative versions of songs from the film.

[54] The film had its official Royal World Charity Premiere on December 12, 1967, at the Odeon Marble Arch in London, with Queen Elizabeth II in attendance.

On September 30, 1966, the cover of Life magazine featured a picture of Harrison, in character as Doctor Dolittle, riding a giraffe, and inside there was an article documenting the film's production.

[57][58] Reviewing the film for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther said: "The music is not exceptional, the rendering of the songs lacks variety, and the pace, under Richard Fleischer's direction, is slow and without surprise.

"[59] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times claimed that "Doctor Dolittle, though it is beautiful, often funny, often charming, tuneful and gay, is in an odd way never really sentimentally moving, even in the sense that it sets up in us elders a yearning for lost youth.

"[60] Time magazine wrote: "Somehow—with the frequent but by no means infallible exception of Walt Disney—Hollywood has never learned what so many children's book writers have known all along: size and a big budget are no substitutes for originality and charm.

Doctor Dolittle's appeal as family fare was undermined when the press drew attention to allegedly racist content in Lofting's books, prompting demands to have them removed from school libraries.

[68] 20th Century-Fox's decision to mount an Oscar campaign for the film was partially due to their lackluster slate of releases during the holiday season in 1967, while a major commercial success, Valley of the Dolls, had received a less-than-stellar critical reception.

As a result, in January and February 1968, Fox booked 16 consecutive nights of free screenings of Doctor Dolittle on the studio lot for members of the Academy, complete with dinner and champagne.