2h 32min | Adventure, Comedy, Family | 19 December 1967 | Color, ws
Director: Richard Fleischer
Stars: Rex Harrison, Samantha Eggar, Anthony Newley, Richard Attenborough, Geoffrey Holder.
Herbert Ross ... dances and musical numbers staged by
14 songs in the Soundtracks.
Must have been intended for children; I see no value here. Even the idea of talking with animals is not very interesting, at least not here.
What else to say to prevent me from watching this again? Maybe read the trivia for the film to see how awful the making was. Think of all the animals trained and left behind in CA, and the replacement animals in England that had to be trained. All the long days/nights on set trying to get the animals to do their bits on cue, and RH deliberately sabotaging efforts. At one point RH reaches for the parrot to have it climb on his hand, and the parrot tries to bite him first; not reaching for food, really trying to open-beak grab his hand. Even if no one was deliberately cruel to the animals, making the film was inherently so.
I've never had the urge to watch the film, and my instincts were right on this one. Even The Simpsons had an episode warning us not to watch this. (The children groan when it's shown at an assembly at school.)
Fox & more, dir. Fleischer; 5
