N.Y. Times Review of The Mikado Film
A Technicolor Mikado Visits The Screen of The Rivoli
The New York Times, 3 June 1939, p. 27
Having weathered swinging and heating, The Mikado has had no trouble at all in passing its screen test. The film edition of it shown last night at the Rivoli is fairly straight Gilbert and Sullivan served up in a generous colorful Technicolor production, with Kenny Baker, radio star, as a quite acceptable Nanki-Poo, and Martyn Green and Sydney Granville (of the D'Oyly Carte Greens and Granvilles) overacting Ko-Ko and the Pooh-Bah in the best Savoyard tradition. How it will go down with John Q. Public this corner knoweth not, there being no statistics on the proportion of Gilbert and Sullivan addicts in the movie going group. Our guess is that he will accept it good naturedly, largely out of politeness to the British sense of whimsy.
There's something about The Mikado which makes one wonder whether it should be taken away from the footlights, from the realm of unabashed nonsense and make-believe. Take the matter of make-up on the stage: the upslanting eyebrows and smudge of green grease paint delightfully enhance the air of unreality into which Savoyards escape whenever the D'Oyly Carte troupe comes to town. But on the screen, when the closeups zoom, those facial extravaganzas are a distraction. Take Ko-Ko: on the stage he's a pretty funny fellow; his caperings, eye-rolling, music hall mannerisms seem written into the part. But on the screen — well, Mr. Green does grow a bit tiresome; wasn't it during the Keystone days that comedians used to kick their heels before running?
But this isn't criticizing the picture, but the project, and that should be Universal's business, not ours. As a film edition of the most popular item in the Gilbert and Sullivna repertoire, it must be recognized as one of the most luscious productions of the operetta in history. Never were there such costumes or sets, never such colors — mother or pearl, dun, peach, orchid, all the pastel range. The voices are first rate, possibly excepting that of Jean Colin's Yum-Yum, and the microphone has the goodness to let us hear the lyrics instead of making us supply them from memory. Count those as assets, and the chorus work of the D'Oyly Cartes and the substitution of the London Symphony Orchestra for the usual eleven man band in the pit. On the score of scores this Mikado ranks high.
We have a quarrel or two with the adaptation, though. A prologue, both written and pictorial, for so simple a tale seems almost an insulting concession to the film audience. We are completely mystified over the omission of Ko-Ko's "I've Got A Little List" song. It is one that certainly will be missed. Too bad, too, about the scrapping of Katisha's "There Is Beauty In The Bellow Of The Beast [sic]." But those, with slight dialogue deletions here and there, constitute the only significant excisions. The rest of it is about as Gilbert and Sullivan wrote it and as dozens of companies have been playing it for generations. The die-hard Savoyards may guff a bit, but they cannot scream "sacrilege."
In fact the suspicion exists that Victor Schertzinger and Geoffrey Toye, its director and producer respectively, have erred more on the side of fidelity than elsewhere. Too many of the sequences end as though the curtain had just been lowered, or pause as though the singers were trying to determine whether the applause justified an encore. There, finally, is the heart of the matter; The Mikado has long since ceased being a performance from one side of the footlights only. It has grown to be an experience which the audience shares. Technicolor is warm, the production liberal, the players in the film version are generally fine; but The Mikado is just a picture on the screen while it is an institution and a rite in the theatre.
[Editor's Note: The reviewer was clearly unaware that the "little list" had been dropped from the film at the last minute, either because it contained the "n-----" word, or because it included a picture of Hitler. Also, the patented cinematic encore system was obviously not in use at this showing, which explains why the reviewer thought it odd that performers seemed to be waiting for an encore, when none was forthcoming.]
