From the glory days of MGM comes this rollicking sea adventure based on the true story of HMS Bounty in AD 1788.

Winner of the best picture Academy Award for 1935, Mutiny on the Bounty has been remade twice, in 1962 and 1984, and neither can hold a candle to the original production.

The story concerns a voyage to Tahiti to pick up breadfruit seedlings. Britain wanted to establish plantations in their other colonies. The ship reaches Tahiti and gathers the cargo, but the captain’s brutality both on the voyage to Tahiti and back causes the first officer to lead a mutiny, cast the captain and his few loyalists adrift in a lifeboat, and return to Tahiti. Somehow, the captain survives and travels over 3,600 sea miles to Timor. He returns to England, gets another ship and returns to Tahiti. The mutineers see his sail on the horizon and set sail with their Polynesian women and some recruits before the captain arrives. They land on uncharted Pitcairn’s Island and sink the Bounty. True to form, the captain puts a number of loyalists who were left on Tahiti in irons, taking them back to England for punishment, after he wrecks his ship scouring the seas for the mutineers.

Director Frank Lloyd (Wells Fargo, If I Were King) had a hard time getting MGM to back the story, getting a resounding “no” from Louis B. Mayer but finally getting super producer Irving Thalberg (Grand Hotel, The Good Earth) to convince Mayer the story was marketable. The film cost $2,000,000 depression-era dollars so you can imagine what it would cost today. Two full scale ships were built and sailed to Tahiti and back.

Two of the biggest stars of the day were given the leading roles, Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh and Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian, first officer on the Bounty. Both stars had to be persuaded by Thalberg to take their roles, Laughton because he feared the implacable character of Bligh would typecast him; it did - and Gable because he felt the knee breeches and pigtail would make his millions of fans think he was a pansy; it didn’t.

Adding to the cast, Franchot Tone played the idealistic young officer, Mr. Byam, and the crew was handpicked from the legendary MGM stable of supporting actors. Movita Castaneda played Tehani, Fletcher Christian’s love interest.

Charles Laughton as the tyrannical Captain Bligh makes one of the greatest screen villains of all time. He is competent and wicked and there is hardly a shred of weakness in him. He is the type of monster you have nightmares about. Of course, Gable is manly and his scenes with Tehani are heart throbbing. Both Laughton and costars Clark Gable and Franchot Tone were nominated for Best Actor, the only time that three actors from a single film were nominated. However neither of the three won, the award instead going to Victor McLaglen who starred in The Informer.

Mutiny on the Bounty is a bona fide masterpiece; it contains the right mix of action, character development, and humor and makes the 132 minute running time see short. The Warner Bros. DVD just became available and like any seventy year-old movie, it has its defects but has been restored as well as possible. There are a couple of featurettes and trailers included as extras. There is hardly another sea adventure I can name that would rank with this film. Also available in VHS.

Watch a good film tonight!


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening