Shot in Technicolor, it was produced by Gilliat and Frank Launder for London Films in time to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

In addition to describing the ups and downs of the partnership between Gilbert and Sullivan, and their relationships with their producer, Richard D'Oyly Carte, the movie depicts many of the people who performed in the original runs of the operas and includes extensive musical excerpts from the works, staged with the assistance of Martyn Green, who advised on the performance practices of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

[4] The film is similar in style to other popular biopics of the era, such as The Great Caruso, and takes considerable dramatic licence with factual details and moves events in time.

Appearances were also made by Dinah Sheridan as Grace Marston, Wilfrid Hyde-White as Mr. Marston, Leonard Sachs as Smythe, Owen Brannigan as the company's principal heavy baritone, Thomas Round as the company's principal tenor, Isabel Dean as Mrs. Gilbert, Arthur Howard as the Usher in Trial by Jury, Muriel Aked as Queen Victoria and Michael Ripper as Louis.

[7] The young composer Arthur Sullivan is encouraged by his friends and fiancée, Grace, to pursue the creation of "serious" works, such as his cantata The Prodigal Son, but he is pleased by the acclaim that he receives for the music to the short comic opera Trial by Jury, a collaboration with dramatist W.S.

Still wrestling with this dilemma, Sullivan joins Gilbert and the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte in a partnership to create more light operas.

The Pirates of Penzance premieres in New York to much acclaim, and Carte soon builds a new theatre in London to present the partnership's operas.

Sullivan conducts the performance, but Gilbert escapes the theatre to walk the streets, returning just in time to take a triumphant curtain call before the enthusiastic crowd.

Sullivan's friend, critic Joseph Bennett, writes a libretto for a cantata based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Golden Legend.

Gilbert, suffering from gout, and in a particularly foul temper, examines the financial accounts of the partnership, seeing a large item for the purchase of a new carpet at the Savoy Theatre.

Source:[7] Among the additional singing voices heard on the soundtrack are Webster Booth, Owen Brannigan, Muriel Brunskill, John Cameron, Elsie Morison, Marjorie Thomas, Jennifer Vyvyan and Harold Williams.

[16][17] In March 1951, Korda said the film "would not be a straight biography but rather an episodic treatment of the Gilbert and Sullivan era, which will also include their music and biographical material.

[19] They decided to focus the script on the conflict between the composers caused by Sullivan's feeling that he was wasting his time writing comic operas.

Bridget D'Oyly Carte was reported to be collaborating on the film and, according to The New York Times, "it is well known she believes in Gilbert and Sullivan being kept faithful to the traditions in every detail.

[20] According to the BFI, Alexander Korda "was keen that the film's main message, that a truly successful work of art contains elements of the vulgar and populist as well as the rarefied, came through loud and clear.

[25][26] The Monthly Film Bulletin reviewer commented: "The respectfully dull costume productions of the Korda group since 1947 find full scope in this frightfully proper account ... it is never easy to distinguish between operetta and real-life narration.

The colour is wonderful, the music is a feast of reminiscence for G & S fans, the technical qualities are precise, the score is (just) out of copyright and the story is very, very English.