Editing Doctor Dolittle (1967 film) (section)

==Post-production==
The film's first [[test screening]] took place in September 1967 at the [[Mann Theatres|Mann Theatre]] in Minneapolis, and it was a failure. The audience consisted mainly of adults, who were not the primary target audience, and the general response during the screening was muted. Comment cards rated the film poorly, with frequent complaints about the length, so, in an attempt to improve the pacing, several verses were dropped from the songs, including "Beautiful Things", and the song "Where Are the Words?" was removed before the film was screened again in San Francisco. The shorter edit screened to a younger audience in a different city was no more successful, so additional edits were made, including the removal of the song "Something in Your Smile", before the film was screened in [[San Jose, California]]. This version of the film, which ran 151 minutes, was received well enough to be approved as the final cut.{{sfn|Harris|2008|pp=353–357}}{{sfn|Kennedy|2014|pp=95–96}}

In October, as the film's release date approached, Helen Winston sued 20th Century Fox for $4.5&nbsp;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. The animal strike is mentioned at the end of the movie, but was not actually filmed.{{sfn|Harris|2008|pp=357–358}}