Monday Movie Madness: Doctor Dolittle

When I was listening to the music for Book of Mormon, I heard a lot of references to other famous musicals.  I had to Google 'I Believe and I Have Confidence' to make sure I wasn't just imagining the connection.  But as far as I could tell, there were no references to this particular musical.

'Doctor Dolittle' was one of the half-dozen or so musical films that I grew up playing on VHS on almost non-stop repeat.  Unlike most of the others, this movie is not a critically-acclaimed classic, it was a budget-buster back in the day that apparently required a lot of wining and dining of Academy voters to get some awards.  But it's one of those things that because you loved it when you were young and didn't know any better, you still love it even now that maybe you should.

So this is an ambivalent review in that I want to share my love of this movie, but I don't want to take responsibility for recommending it.  If you are a classic musical fan and haven't seen it, it's good fun.  But it isn't to be taken seriously.  After all, we're talking about the story of a man who can talk to animals and goes on a journey to find the Great Pink Sea Snail.  And hey, it's on Netflix Instant right now.

I caught it playing on Turner Classic Movies the other day, right at the start of possibly my favorite part, the pushmi-pullyus.  Basically, a pushmi-pullyu is a llama with two front ends.  As a kid, I was simply enchanted by this creature, who loved to dance.  And now that I'm a knitter, I'm going to make the executive decision that Rex Harrison made just a slight error and that they are in fact a breed of alpaca.  Yes, that's right.

Things have been busy over with Amaryllis Musings, so there's no Madness there for this week just yet, but you should still check it out, since she started me on these weekly cinematic tangents.