New Republic wrote 'The whole thing seems to have been shoved through the cameras as glibly as possible, so that everyone could grab the money and run. I called the picture a failure, but that implies attempt. I feel a real effort in only the first four or five minutes". The film was not successful commercially, though it was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Score (Georges Delerue) and Best Sound (Richard Portman and Larry Jost). Levine also claimed the movie had guaranteed pre-sales of $8,450,000 to cover costs, including a sale to NBC, which had expressed interest into turning the story into a TV series. Alpha the dolphin was named best animal actor in the 24th Patsy Awards. Levine admitted the film was not a success: The rushes looked great. But it just didn't jell somehow. I really think Mike [Nichols] was the wrong guy to direct. And George C. Scott! ... He got paid $750,000 for that movie—and ran us over schedule. The first three days of shooting he reported in with a "virus". As of March 2022, The Day of the Dolphin holds a rating of 43% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews. Differences from the novel and other sources of inspiration Merle's novel, a satire of the Cold War, is supposedly the basis for this film, but the film's plot was substantially different from that of the novel. The movie is instead inspired in part from the scientist John C. Lilly's life. A physician, biophysicist, neuroscientist, and inventor, Lilly specialized in the study of consciousness. In 1959, he founded the Communications Research Institute at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands and served as its director until 1968. There he worked with dolphins exploring dolphin intelligence and human-dolphin communication. See also Bottlenose dolphin communication and John Lilly and cetacean communication. See also List of American films of 1973 Military dolphin References External links 1973 films 1970s thriller films American political thriller films American science fiction thriller films 1970s English-language films Films scored by Georges Delerue Films about dolphins Films about the United States Coast Guard Films based on French novels Films based on science fiction novels Films directed by Mike Nichols Films shot in the Bahamas Mad scientist films Films with screenplays by Buck Henry Talking animals in fiction Embassy Pictures films 1970s American films