- Able Seaman Dick Deadeye is charged by Queen Victoria to find the stolen Ultimate Secret. His ugliness means that his life has always been lonely but a buxom barmaid takes a shine to him. Together, they battle pirates and an evil magician before discovering that the Ultimate Secret is nothing but LOVE! Using songs based on the original works of Gilbert and Sullivan (but updated with modern lyrics), this film was created to commemorate the centenary anniversary of the first collaboration of the composers of the Savoy Operas.—Rhino <rhino@blueyonder.co.uk>
- "Dick Deadeye" Or "Duty Done"
This is an animated cartoon designed by Ronald Searle and directed by Bill Mendelez based upon a pastiche-compilation of several Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, being 'HMS Pinafore' (HMP), 'Iolanthe' (Io), 'The Mikado' (M), 'Patience' (P), 'The Pirates of Penzance' (PoP), 'Ruddigore' (R), 'The Sorcerer' (S), 'Trial by Jury' (TbJ), and 'Utopia Limited' (ULtd). The words and music are both adapted from the originals by Robin Miller and Leo Rost. The voice actors are credited.
Able Seaman Dick Deadeye (Victor Spinetti: HMP) is commissioned by Queen Victoria to regain the "Ultimate Secret" (U.S.) which has been stolen by the Sorcerer (Peter Reeves: S) and his reptilian sidekick, the Shameleon, and which is being offered by them to The Pirate King (George Cooper, sung Ian Samwell: PoP).
Dick spots the Sorcerer and the King conferring at a military parade ('Entrance of the Peers'; 'Bow, bow ye lower middle classes': Io), where also good Japanese Nanki (John Newton, sung Casey Kelly: M) spots his evil identical twin brother Poo (also John Newton / Casey Kelly: M) pick-pocketing the crowd. Dick hurries to the military H.Q., the Hexagon, to find help ('Here's a how-dee-do': M) where he meets the Captain (Peter Reeves: HMP) and they both go to see The Major-General (Francis Ghent, sung John Baldry: PoP: 'I am the very model of a modern major general': PoP) who also charges Dick with the recovery of the U.S..
Dick hurries to the pirates' hang-out, "The Queen's Nose", ('Oh, better far to live and die': PoP) where Rose Maybud (Julia McKenzie, sung Liza Strike: R), the barmaid, is on the lookout for "a man of pure evil, so I can reform him". She spots Dick ('Prithee, pretty maiden': P) but drops him when she finds he's good. The Sorcerer and Shameleon arrive ('My name is John Wellington Wells' (JWW): S: "I counsel on etiquette / You'll eat spaghetti, yet") and agree to sell the U.S. to the Pirate King in exchange for the (rather small) remaining pirate treasure. The Sorcerer goes to fetch the U.S., followed by Dick and some pirates, whom he eludes: and the Shameleon attracts a Cat as a lover.
At the Sorcerer's shop (JWW: S reprise), Dick distracts the Sorcerer with a request for a potion to make him handsome ('Sprites of earth and air': S), and tries to steal the U.S., but it and the Shameleon are knocked out of the window into the basket of Little Buttercup (Miriam Karlin: HMP), a buxom ribbons-, bangles-, and marine-supplies-vendor in a low-cut purple-striped dress. The basket is stolen by Poo, and all give chase, including a posse of three policemen ('A policeman's lot is not a happy one': PoP), but they actually catch Nanki instead and drag him off to trial.
At the Courts of Justice, the Judge (Barry Cryer: TbJ: 'All hail great Judge': 'Now, Jurymen, hear my advice', both TbJ) falls for Little Buttercup ('I'm called Little Buttercup': HMP) and having been bored with Nanki's evidence ('A wandering minstrel I': M; and 'I swear to tell the truth' based on 'When I go out of door': P) sends Nanki to the Tower of London for 200 years ("How guilty do you find the defendant?" "Very guilty!" "Very proper".), before exiting the Court in triumph ('A Judge is he, and a good judge too': TbJ) with Little Buttercup.
At the Tower of London, escorted by the Yeoman of the Guard (another G&S operetta: 'Farewell the world': HMP) Nanki muses on his lot and lost love, Yum-Yum (Linda Lewis, sung Beth Porter: M), whose spirit is trapped in Nanki's shamisen or guitar ('Just as the moon must have the sun', based on 'The sun whose rays': M) awaiting Nanki to become "a whole man, to make me a whole woman". Poo meets the Sorcerer outside the Tower and agrees to return the U.S. in return for becoming his apprentice to learn all his tricks. The pirates capture them and take then to "The Queen's Neck", where it is found that the U.S. is in code: all agree that it shall be deciphered by the Sorcerer on board the pirate ship. Poo declares himself to be 'the most evil man in the world', the 'Terror of Titipu' - Rose decides to fall in love with him and reform him.
Dick rushes back to the Hexagon to enlist aid: he finds the Rear-Admiral (Francis Ghent, sung John Baldry: HMP: 'I am the monarch of the sea', HMP) and his sisters and his cousins and his aunts, who promptly calls the Captain ('He remains an Englishman', HMP) and gives him command of the 'Pinafore', and also a permit to Dick to seek a crew amongst the condemned prisoners. Dick rushes to the Tower, to find Nanki entertaining the prisoners ('The flowers that bloom in the spring': M: Prisoner sung by Ian Samwell), where they almost all enlist.
The pirates go on board their ship, together with the Sorcerer and Poo ('Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry': PoP); Rose Maybud sneaks aboard dressed as a pirate, and so does the Cat, which corners the Shameleon.
The Captain is taken by the dignitaries (Judge, Major-General, Rear-Admiral 'When I was a lad': HMP) to the 'Pinafore', his first command ('We sail the ocean blue' and 'I am the Captain of the 'Pinafore'': both HMP), and indeed the first time he's been to sea. Little Buttercup outfits the crew, and the rats leave the ship.
The 'Pinafore' gives chase to the pirate ship, aided by a couple of giant cherubs ('Go, ye heroes': PoP) - and Poo takes advantage of the ocean-motion (and a garlic sausage, mussels, butterscotch, bacon and cream pizza) to make the Sorcerer sick and hand over the U.S. - but when they catch up the crews are more inclined to welcome old friends rather than fight. The Captain and Pirate King do fight, but the King's pants fall down revealing a strawberry birthmark on his backside. Little Buttercup then reveals ('Many years ago': HMP) that when she was a nursemaid she mixed up the infant Captain (recognizable by the birthmark) and Pirate King so they now change clothes and places. However, neither now has the U.S..
Poo has however now escaped with the U.S., to the nearby island of Utopia, so the combined crews follow ('With cat-like tread': PoP), coming across the scantily-clad Regent of Utopia, the Princess Zara (Miriam Karlin?: ULtd) and her court of show-girls, with whom they sing the double chorus (female 'Hail, hail, and how-dee-do', based on 'Come friends who plough the sea': PoP; with male counter-chorus 'Land of sand and sea and sun' - this is not G&S but in the style of the "Beach Boys"). Zara has captured Poo: the Sorcerer offers to execute him, and steals the U.S. back: pursued into a small pond by Dick and the Captain, it is discovered from the reflection that the U.S. is in mirror-writing, and is: "It's love that makes the world go round" ('Nothing venture, nothing win': HMP).
With the secret out, Nanki and Poo become merged into one person "man is composed of both good and evil", and the spirit of Yum Yum (the missing Queen of Utopia - who else?) is released from Nanki-Poo's shamisen: the Sorcerer falls for Little Buttercup, and Dick and Rose Maybud are reunited. The U.S. being revealed world-wide, war and crime cease ('Here's a how-dee-do': M) and the dignitaries arrive by hot-air balloon to start an idyllic existence with the island girls. The Shameleon and its lover the Cat steal the balloon, which floats off as the credits roll ('Entrance of the Peers', Io, reprise).
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