Cultural influence of Gilbert and Sullivan "Topsy-Turvy" (1999) is an award-winning film depiction of the team and the creation of their most popular opera, "The Mikado". Another G&S film is the 1953 "The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan" (or "The Great Gilbert and Sullivan" in the U.S.), starring Robert Morley as Gilbert and Maurice Evans as Sullivan, with Martyn Green as George Grossmith. In a short 1950 film called "The Return of Gilbert and Sullivan", Gilbert and Sullivan return to Earth to protest the jazz treatment of their work. In the 1951 film "The Magic Box" Sir Arthur Sullivan, played by the film conductor, Muir Mathieson,
Gilbert and Sullivan organist and composed numerous hymns, popular songs, and parlour ballads. Sullivan's first foray into comic opera was "Cox and Box" (1866), written with librettist F. C. Burnand for an informal gathering of friends. Public performance followed, with W. S. Gilbert (then writing dramatic criticism for the magazine "Fun") saying that Sullivan's score "is, in many places, of too high a class for the grotesquely absurd plot to which it is wedded." Nonetheless, it proved highly successful, and is still regularly performed today. Sullivan and Burnand's second opera, "The Contrabandista" (1867) was not as successful. In 1871, producer John Hollingshead brought