Mikado

There's much to laugh at, for good and bad reasons, in The Mikado, the first (1939) movie version of a Gilbert and Sullivan musical. The only totally negative feature is the stagey OTT make-up, visible proof that swatches of theatrical mascara and other facial paint look awful in close-ups. The gaudy costumes and lavish stage designs are more acceptably outre, as they suit the mock-Japanese setting and the Oscar-nominated Technicolor cinematography.

Although the movie was filmed at England's Pinewood studios and used many stars and choristers from the Savoy Theatre's D'Oyly Carte Company, it was a Hollywood co-production. To maximise its appeal to non-British audiences, it hired an American radio pop star (Kenny Baker) to take the role of wishy-washy Nanki-Poo, the Mikado's son and "second trombone", and an Australia-based D'Oyly Carte veteran (John Barclay) to giggle manically as the ludicrously logical Mikado.

A well-chosen Hollywood veteran talent took the director's chair. Trained as a violist and a composer, Victor Schertzinger had been Oscar-nominated for One Night of Love in 1934, and went on to make the first two Hope and Crosby Road movies. His last film, The Fleet's In, included four of his own songs, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer: Tangerine and I Remember You remain popular, explaining why the film's soundtrack (and sound recording) won Oscars in 1942. Schertzinger, at the age of 53, had died from a heart attack the previous October after completing the film (his 89th).

He worked with the then leading D'Oyly Carte stage director to add cinematic elements to a tradition-bound production that dared not stray too far from the beloved Gilbert's original 1885 staging. An explanatory prologue and a throng of extras were added, ornate costumes and sets were created, and various songs were cut (including two of baleful man-hungry Katisha's ballads). The Criterion DVD (published by its second-tier Janus division) includes one deleted scene: the Lord High Executioner's famous ditty about his "little list" of abhorred people, which included "nigger minstrels". In 1941, the producers hadn't seen the need to revise that, and also included a topical comic cut-away to an extra with a Hitlerian moustache.

English director Mike Leigh (whose Topsy Turvy focused on The Mikado and the G&S/D'Oyly Carte working relationships) provides an illuminating to-camera commentary in another DVD item. Similarly, two American academics comment in useful detail, their remarks amplified by short clips from the movie. As so often, Criterion's packet transforms a pleasant movie into a worthy cinema relic.