The Mikado

Plot synopsis:
=== Act I ===
Courtyard of Ko-Ko's Official Residence
Gentlemen of the fictitious Japanese town of Titipu are gathered ("If you want to know who we are"). A handsome but poor trombonist, Nanki-Poo, arrives and introduces himself ("A wand'ring minstrel I"). He inquires about his beloved, a schoolgirl called Yum-Yum, who is a ward of Ko-Ko (formerly a cheap tailor). One of the gentlemen, Pish-Tush, explains that when the Mikado decreed that flirting was a capital crime, the Titipu authorities frustrated the decree by appointing Ko-Ko, a prisoner condemned to death for flirting, to the post of Lord High Executioner ("Our great Mikado, virtuous man"). As Ko-Ko was the next prisoner scheduled to be decapitated, the town authorities reasoned that he could "not cut off another's head until he cut his own off", and since Ko-Ko was not likely to try to execute himself, no executions could take place. However, all of the town's officials except the haughty nobleman, Pooh-Bah, proved too proud to serve under an ex-tailor, and they resigned. Pooh-Bah now holds all their posts and collects all their salaries. Pooh-Bah informs Nanki-Poo that Yum-Yum is scheduled to marry Ko-Ko on the very day that he has returned ("Young man, despair").
 Ko-Ko enters ("Behold the Lord High Executioner") and asserts himself by reading off a list of people "who would not be missed" if they were executed ("As some day it may happen"), such as people "who eat peppermint and puff it in your face". Yum-Yum appears with Ko-Ko's other two wards, Peep-Bo and Pitti-Sing ("Comes a train of little ladies", "Three little maids from school"). Pooh-Bah does not think that the girls have shown him enough respect ("So please you, sir"). Nanki-Poo arrives and informs Ko-Ko of his love for Yum-Yum. Ko-Ko sends him away, but Nanki-Poo manages to meet with his beloved and reveals his secret to Yum-Yum: he is the son and heir of the Mikado, but travels in disguise to avoid the amorous advances of Katisha, an elderly lady of his father's court. They lament that the law forbids them to flirt ("Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted").
Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah receive news that the Mikado has just decreed that unless an execution is carried out in Titipu within a month, the town will be reduced to the rank of a village, which would bring "irretrievable ruin". Pooh-Bah and Pish-Tush point to Ko-Ko himself as the obvious choice for beheading, since he was already under sentence of death ("I am so proud"). Ko-Ko argues, however, that, firstly, it would be "extremely difficult, not to say dangerous", for someone to attempt their own beheading, and secondly, it would be suicide, which is a capital offence. Fortuitously, Ko-Ko discovers that Nanki-Poo, in despair over losing Yum-Yum, is preparing to commit suicide. After ascertaining that nothing would change Nanki-Poo's mind, Ko-Ko makes a bargain with him: Nanki-Poo may marry Yum-Yum for one month if, at the end of that time, he allows himself to be executed. Ko-Ko would then marry the young widow.
Everyone arrives to celebrate Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum's union ("With aspect stern and gloomy stride"), but the festivities are interrupted by the arrival of Katisha, who has come to claim Nanki-Poo as her husband. However, the townspeople are sympathetic to the young couple, and Katisha's attempts to reveal Nanki-Poo's secret are drowned out by the shouting of the crowd. Outwitted but not defeated, Katisha makes it clear that she intends to get vengeance.
=== Act II ===
Ko-Ko's Garden.
Yum-Yum is being prepared by her friends for her wedding ("Braid the raven hair"), after which she muses on her own beauty ("The sun whose rays"). Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo return to remind her of the limited duration of her impending union. Joined by Nanki-Poo and Pish-Tush, they try to keep their spirits up ("Brightly dawns our wedding-day"), but soon Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah enter to inform them of a twist in the law that states that when a married man is beheaded for flirting, his wife must be buried alive ("Here's a how-de-do"). Yum-Yum is unwilling to marry under these circumstances, and so Nanki-Poo challenges Ko-Ko to behead him on the spot. It turns out, however, that Ko-Ko has never executed anyone, not even a Blue bottle, and cannot execute Nanki-Poo, because the ex-tailor is too soft-hearted. Ko-Ko instead sends Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum away to be wed (by Pooh-Bah, as Archbishop of Titipu), promising to present to the Mikado a false affidavit in evidence of the fictitious execution.
The Mikado and Katisha arrive in Titipu accompanied by a large procession ("Mi-ya Sa-Ma", "From Every Kind of Man"). The Mikado describes his system of justice ("A more humane Mikado"). Ko-Ko assumes that the ruler has come to see whether an execution has been carried out. Aided by Pitti-Sing and Pooh-Bah, he graphically describes the supposed execution ("The criminal cried") and hands the Mikado the certificate of death, signed and sworn to by Pooh-Bah as coroner. Ko-Ko notes slyly that most of the town's important officers (that is, Pooh-Bah) were present at the ceremony. However, the Mikado has come about an entirely different matter; he is searching for his son. When they hear that the Mikado's son "goes by the name of Nanki-Poo", the three panic, and Ko-Ko says that Nanki-Poo "has gone abroad". Meanwhile, Katisha is reading the death certificate and notes with horror that the person executed was Nanki-Poo. The Mikado, though expressing understanding and sympathy ("See How the Fates"), discusses with Katisha the statutory punishment "for compassing the death of the heir apparent" to the Imperial throne—something lingering, "with boiling oil ... or melted lead". With the three conspirators facing painful execution, Ko-Ko pleads with Nanki-Poo to reveal himself to his father. Nanki-Poo fears that Katisha will demand his execution if she finds he is alive, but he suggests that if Katisha could be persuaded to marry Ko-Ko, then Nanki-Poo could safely "come to life again", as Katisha would have no claim on him ("The flowers that bloom in the spring"). Though Katisha is "something appalling", Ko-Ko has no choice: it is marriage to Katisha, or a painful death for himself, Pitti-Sing and Pooh-Bah.
Ko-Ko finds Katisha mourning her loss ("Alone, and yet alive") and throws himself on her mercy. He begs for her hand in marriage, saying that he has long harboured a passion for her. Katisha initially rebuffs him, but is soon moved by his story of a bird who died of heartbreak ("Tit-willow"). She agrees ("There is beauty in the bellow of the blast") and, once the ceremony is performed (by Pooh-Bah, the Registrar), she begs for the Mikado's mercy for him and his accomplices. Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum then re-appear, sparking Katisha's fury. The Mikado is astonished that Nanki-Poo is alive, as the account of his execution had been given with such "affecting particulars". Ko-Ko explains that when a royal command for an execution is given, the victim is, legally speaking, as good as dead, "and if he is dead, why not say so?" The Mikado deems that "Nothing could possibly be more satisfactory", and everyone in Titipu celebrates ("For he's gone and married Yum-Yum").

Tags: romantic

Review:
Suffers from cuts, but makes up in the quality of the performers--Modified rapture!.
In the 1930s the decision was made to do a movie of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta as a star vehicle for Kenny Baker.
They decided to do "The Yeomen of the Guard" with Baker as Fairfax and engage members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for other roles in the film--including Martyn Green as Jack Point.
In his autobiography, Green states that he feels "Yeomen" would have made a better movie.This is an interesting Mikado, with both its upsides and its downsides.
The Mikado is one of Gilbert and Sullivan's best works, and it's a shame that so much of G&S's score is left out.
Missing from the production are Pooh-Bah's "Young Man Despair;" Ko-Ko's excellent "Little List" song; "So Please You Sir, We Much Regret" (the quartet between Pooh-Bah and the girls); much of the Act I Finale; the quintet between Pooh-Bah, Pitti-Sing, Ko-Ko, the Mikado, and Katisha--"See How the Fates Their Gifts Allot;" Katisha's solo "Alone and Yet Alive;" and Katisha and Ko-Ko's duet "There is Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast."  I assume these were all cut due to time, but it is a shame to lose them.
Despite the fact that it's Kenny Baker and Jean Colin's faces you see on the front of the box, the star here is Martyn Green as Ko-Ko.
Green was the principle comic baritone with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (a name which has always been synonymous with the best performances of Gilbert & Sullivan you can find) for many years and both this and the many recordings he made show that he was one of the best actors to ever play the Grossmith roles.
He gives a stellar performance as Ko-Ko, the lord high executioner, and it really is a shame the list song was cut.
Another D'Oyle Carte regular, Sydney Granville, plays Pooh-Bah and he is excellent as well.
His Pooh-Bah is just as great as Green's Ko-Ko. There are quite a few other D'Oyly Carters here as well--Elizabeth Paynter and Kathleen Naylor (Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo), the entire chorus, and Gregory Stroud (Pish-Tush) had done a bit of work with the D'Oyly Carte during the 1926 season.
Victor Schertzinger manages to transfer the show to film quite well without it feeling too awkward on the screen (although I agree with Martyn Green in feeling that Yeomen would have made a better movie).All in all, despite the song cuts, it is an excellent production of the Mikado, one that is well worth seeing.
Of the Mikados I have seen on video and/or DVD (including this one, Stradford's production, Opera World's, and English National Opera's), I would say this is the best one out there.
I've seen this 1939 Technicolor version of the Mikado now maybe 10 times over 3 decades and it hasn't palled on me yet, it's a wonderful production of a wonderful operetta.
I'm not a huge Gilbert & Sullivan expert, but I consider this to be their best work overall - I'd give the music and lyrics 9.9 out of 10 alone - and I do recognise this was edited to be squeezed into 90 minutes.
This means a few great scenes and songs are not here, but as it's still great all the way through anyway I don't mind too much.Although he did a good job, was good looking and had a fine singing voice Kenny Baker is the only thing about this production that jars a little, his kind of material was best displayed in films like At The Circus.
Was it simply to help sell it in America, or did he want the role?At this distance we should be grateful for what we've got - I wish this entire team (cast and crew) had also made some of the other greats such as Pinafore and Penzance for us to admire and then quibble over the chosen edit!
To anyone who wants to give G&S a try, try this, revel in Gilbert's gloriously witty and extensive use of the English language, be roused by some of Sullivan's most beautiful and catchy tunes.
For many years it was fashionable to sneer at this early marriage of Gilbert & Sullivan, the D'Oyly Carte and the movies.
But most of what remains is charming, fresh and very lively.Martyn Green steals the film as KoKo, though Sydney Granville gives a time honoured performance as Pooh Bah. My only real gripe is that Darrell Fancourt, that doyen of the D'Oyly Carte, was not called upon to sing the title role.
And if I don't believe that this is the best of the G & S works, it is certainly a delightful way of spending an hour and a half..
Great singing, wonderful production..
Given these, the camera can rejoice in the operetta's stage-centeredness: the chorus can file onstage in glorious pageant and wondrous costume; the singers can face the audience and extend their arms in that wonderful G&S take on the hamminess that underlies the proper Englishman.
The singing is tops, the physical comedy is wonderful, and there's more good feeling in it than in the next 20 Hollywood feel-good movies you'll see..
The fact that it was shot in the UK in the new (and very vivid) technicolor, was a first for a start, and the preservation of the performances of a number of D'Oyly Carte principals makes this an important historical document.
Sadly, this seems to be a reissue of the version that was on general release in the cinema.
The original cut of the film included a number of sections not present in this release - Ko-Ko's "Little List" song for instance was filmed and certainly was present in the original master copy (a copy of which was in the possession of a late member of the old D'Oyly Carte administrative staff).
Those Flowers That Bloom In The Spring Tra La. With the exception of American radio tenor Kenny Baker, the members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company are the cast of this filmed production of the Mikado.
It was the first technicolor film done in the United Kingdom although in that same year, much better use of color was made in The Four Feathers.A lot of history has passed since The Mikado made its debut in the 1880s.
When that treaty was not renewed in 1923 it eventually set the two powers on a course for war.But in the 1880s Great Britain was fascinated by things Japanese and Gilbert&Sullivan scored a big old satirical hit with The Mikado.
The way Pooh-Bah collects offices and honors with the accompanying salaries was very much in line with the way the British courts over the years rewarded service rendered.Starring in the role of Nanki-Poo the Mikado's son who has run away because he doesn't want to marry some old harpy dad's picked out for him is American radio singer Kenny Baker.
He did several films, most notably the Goldwyn Follies where George Gershwin's last song hit during his lifetime, Love Walked In, became permanently identified with him.
No doubt for reasons of export the British producers chose Baker to have some recognizable name away from the D'Oyly Carte regular company who no one on this side of the pond would have known.
Baker's light pleasing tenor does justice to the Gilbert&Sullivan patter.The film does lack production values though, it's a photographed performance of the opera.
I would have liked to have seen better and outdoor sets possibly, but this is a never-neverland kind of Japan.The Mikado got an Oscar nomination for color cinematography, but was just another casualty to the Gone With The Wind juggernaut of 1939.
Still it's an interesting film and Gilbert&Sullivan fans who just care about the music should be pleased..
superb, if snipped, Gilbert and Sullivan.
This version of 'The Mikado' was released in 1939 and was an early Technicolor production.
This, and the fact that most of the cast are D'Oyly Carte veterans and experts in the material, means it is extremely watchable today.
Even the addition of American Kenny Baker as Nanki-Poo (who acquits himself very well in such exalted company) can't spoil the feeling of watching a superior piece of operetta.Of course there are a number of songs missing from this score, which is a shame.
Chief amongst these is Ko-Ko's 'Little List', which I think was cut because of contemporary references which could seem offensive today.
I'd also liked to have seen more of Pooh-Bah, who has two songs deleted.If you like Gilbert and Sullivan, or operettas generally, or big stage production musicals, sung well and acted with style, 'The Mikado' is for you..
However, the cuts and interpolations made to turn the play into a movie are absolutely vile.
Several totally uncessary scenes are added, songs are given to the wrong characters, and several of the best are cut.
What's The Mikado without "I've Got A Little List" or Katisha's magnificent "Oh, Living I" aria?
I'd also be more comfortable with classic Japanese costumes (which, BTW, Gilbert insisted on) rather than these exaggerated, silly versions of them.
The D'Oyley Carte association with this film led me to expect an absolutely authentic production, and I was terribly disappointed..
Flawed but well made, well sung and interesting film of The Mikado.
The Mikado is one of Gilbert and Sullivan's best works, and I was most interested in seeing this version after trying to view as many G&S productions as possible.
I personally prefer the Lesley Garrett/Eric Idle 1987 version, but while flawed this Mikado is still interesting.
I can understand why there were some, but some either didn't make sense to be cut or are just too good, KoKo's Little List number was especially true to this.
I also thought the spoken prologue was rather pointless and characters have a tendency in important scenes in drift in and out of range.However, visually and technically it is splendid, the Technicolour looks gorgeous and the costumes and sets are wonderfully authentic.
The music is among G&S's best, and while you do wish it was complete it is beautifully performed and conducted.
The performances are generally great, Kenny Baker is not quite as impressive as Nanki-Poo, vocally the singing is bright and clear and he looks the part but his acting is rather bland.
John Barclay is an imposing Mikado, Gregory Stroud is good in the insubstantial role of Pish-Tush and Sydney Granville is delightfully pompous as Pooh-Bah. But the best performance easily comes from the splendid KoKo of Martyn Green, one of the best ever in this role, that's for sure.All in all, interesting and generally well-made and sung, but at the same time perhaps not the most ideal of versions.
It is a pity about the cuts but even so the production is a delight with excellent diction and the 'cut glass' accents of the pretty maids is splendid.With regard to the cuts: the biggest loss is Katisha's "Hearts do not break" and Katisha's duet with Koko " if that is so let's merrily marry".
Yumyum's " The sun whose ray's" is truncated in that the second verse about the moon is omitted, however the Mikado's " I've got a little list " is there and his laugh is terrific, worthy of Boris Karloff.
What did surprise me was that Nankipoo's song " A wandering minstrel I " had an unexpected resonance when combined with the date 1939, it gave his patriotic ballad section a shiver up my spine and brought back memories I would rather not have brought back.Anyway Ken Baker's singing was excellent and as I said the whole thing was beautifully done.
For 1939 and early color this is a film to be remembered.
As Maltin says, Kenny Baker is not ideal, mainly because he has the only American accent in a cast of English G&S specialists and strikes a somewhat discordant note.(I saw this film when I was in the second grade and I still have vivid memories of it, I might even say that it opened a whole new world of musical theatre to me)..
This film romps through the Mikado in less than 90 minutes.
The American lead Kenny Baker, as Nanki-Poo, and Jean Colin, as Yum-Yum both, strangely, sound as though they inhaled from a helium balloon before they started to sing.
This was all beautifully shot at Pinewood Studios with excellent costumes and sets.
The Mikado is a movie that should appeal to those who like musicals or those 35 and older.
The singing is okay and the songs delightful.
All in all, a delightful little musical by Gilbert Sullivan.
I think the effectiveness of the movie would have been more appreciated if Japanese artist had played the roles.
Kenny Baker hogs it but historically of great importance..
This old Technicolor film from 1939 is shown on television quite a lot.Kenny Baker is a taste I never acquired (Dennis Day, his successor on the Jack Benny show was much more bearable.) and, especially in the prologue, he's all over the place.
Kenny's problem is not only his American accent but his really overripe tenor and equally overripe smile gets quite irritating after a while, at least to me.Despite all this, the film is an important record of the D'Oyly Carte company in 1939 and especially of Martyn Green's performance.
A most interesting film for its time.******* out of ***********.
This film looks like a candidate for a restoration if the original negative still exists.
Kenny Baker was OK, but I can't help thinking that he was "groomed" to be another Dick Powell.
Looking at Martyn Green's performance made me think of how Buster Keaton could have played Koko.
And that brought to mind the old television version with Groucho Marx in the role.
Gilbert & Sullivan!
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company!.
I find that I didn't really like it -- but I didn't really DISlike it, either.At the start, I was SURE that this movie had been "colorized".
Then I restarted the opening credits and saw it was, indeed, filmed in color -- in 1939.Yes, they cut "I Have a Little List" and a couple of other favorites.
And yes, they switched the order of some them.However, I think today's audiences would prefer the emended "Little List" and "Sublime" to Gilbert & Sullivan's original lyrics.
I think this version was filmed BEFORE the "official" amendments to those songs -- to eliminate the N-word.I agree with the reviewer who said that this production is better seen as a visual record of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company than as excellence in transferring a stage production to film.
This film was produced by arrangement with Rupert D'Oyly Carte.
Chorus from the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Songs, all lyrics by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, music by Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan: "The Sun, Whose Rays" (Baker, reprized Colin), "Gentlemen of Japan" (chorus), "A Wandering Minstrel, I" (Baker and chorus), "Our Great Mikado" (Stroud and chorus), "Behold the Lord High Executioner" (chorus), "Taken from a County Jail" (Green), "Comes a Train of Little Ladies" (chorus), "Three Little Maids from School" (Colin, Paynter, Naylor and chorus), "Were You Not to Ko-Ko Plighted" (Baker and Colin), "I Am So Proud" (Granville, Green, Stroud), "With Aspect Stern" (Green, Granville, Stroud, chorus), "The Threatened Cloud Has Passed Away" (Baker, Colin, Granville, Paynter, Naylor, chorus), "Long Life to Nanki-Poo" (Granville, chorus), "Your Revels Cease!" (Willis, chorus, Paynter, Baker), "Braid the Raven Hair" (chorus), "For He's Going To Marry Yum-Yum" (Paynter and chorus), "Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day" (Colin, Paynter, Baker, Stroud), "Here's a How-De-Do!" (Colin, Baker, Green), "Miya Sama" (chorus), "Obedience I Expect" (Barclay, Willis, chorus), "A More Humane Mikado" (Barclay and chorus), "The Criminal Cried" (Green, Paynter, Granville, chorus), "The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring" (Baker, Green, Colin, Paynter, Granville), "Titwillow" (Green).
Deleted songs: "Young Man Despair", "I've Got a Little List", "So Pardon Us'', "Oh Fool", "Flutter Little Heart", "A Is Happy", "Alone And Yet Alive", "Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast", "For He's Gone and Married Yum-Yum".
Copyright 10 May 1939 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. A G&S Films (London) Production.
U.K. release through General Film Distributors: January 1939.
Mind you, some viewers complained that Kenny Baker's American accent was distracting.
Others were unhappy by the omission of Ko-Ko's famous patter song about his "little list".
And many of the songs that are retained have been cut down to a few verses.
I came to this movie expecting a full-scale professional performance, encouraged by the presence of authentic Savoyard Martyn Green in the cast (he plays Ko-Ko).
For the first 20 minutes Schertzinger channels Quentin Tarantino: He gives us a capsule summary of the whole plot, followed by a flashback to Nanki-Poo's departure from court (including "If you want to know who we are" and some dialogue pilfered from Act II).
Then Nanki-Poo sings the first verse of "The sun whose rays" -- Yum-Yum's song from Act II -- just to mix things up a bit.
After that it settles down with a classical "Wand'ring Minstrel I" (interrupted only by one Village-of-the-Damned-looking little girl tugging on Nanki-Poo's sleeve during "Oh, sorrow").Green's Ko-Ko and Sydney Granville's Pooh-Bah are reasonable facsimiles of the stage roles, although they do manage to botch most of Gilbert's jokes with a wooden delivery -- and in many cases the punch lines are simply cut out!
Kenny Baker's Nanki-Poo is an inoffensive tenor (contradiction in terms?); Yum-Yum, on the other hand, sounds like one of the Chipmunks in most of her songs.The songs also suffer.
Most detrimentally, "I've got a little list" is cut entirely, as is Katisha's Act II solo, and "Our great Mikado" is shortened by a verse (which renders the lyrics more than a little confusing).
Blame the cuts on budget or censorship (or having no idea, or not being there) -- you can't blame them on time constraints.Schertzinger's "Mikado" was the first in a planned series of Pinewood G&S adaptations.