A handful of British comedians present the worst treatment of Gilbert and Sullivan in history, with cramped sets, cheap-looking and out-of-place archive footage (including travelogue shots of Tokyo), and sloppy photography.
It’s staged like a school play as members of the cast desperately try not to trip over each other.
Frankie Howerd is Japanese gangster Ko-Ko, Stubby Kaye is Judge Mikado, and Tommy Cooper is a private detective named Poo-Bah.
The movie shoehorns in half a dozen songs from the original operetta, with lyrics completely unchanged to match the movie’s situations, so “We are gentlemen of Japan” is sung by a group of British soldiers milling around the cramped studio set and Ko-Ko is suddenly referred to as “the Executioner” so that they can sing “Behold the lord high executioner” for no apparent reason.
Tommy Cooper has the worst of the material and mugs embarrassingly, while Frankie Howerd clearly didn’t want to be there.
Howerd would later comment, “Not only was it the worst film ever made, but it was the one production in show-business that I’m positively ashamed to have appeared in.”
One of the great nightmares of British cinema. Thank you, Michael Winner.
Ko-Ko Flintridge
Frankie Howerd Judge Herbert Mikado/Charlie Hotfleisch
Stubby Kaye Mike
Mike Winters Bernie
Bernie Winters Pooh-Bah, Private Detective
Tommy Cooper Ronald Fortescue
Dennis Price Katie Shaw
Jacqueline Jones Hank Mikado
Kevin Scott Yum-Yum
Jill Mai Meredith Nanki
Lionel Blair Man in Boudoir
Pete Murray Pitti-Sing
Tsai Chin Harry
Glen Mason Elmer
Dermot Walsh Mrs Smith
Carole Shelley Mr Smith
C. Denier Warren Peep-Bo
Yvonne Shima Ho Ho
Kenji Takaki
