Adapted from "The Mikado" by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, at the first opportunity after copyright expired, 50 years after Gilbert's death.
Leslie Halliwell's Film, Video and DVD Guide (2005) quotes Frankie Howerd as having said "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."
Director Michael Winner was embarrassed by The Cool Mikado (1963), which he dismissed as "absolute nonsense, shot in four weeks on the silent stage in Shepperton".