Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

"Cruelty with purpose is not cruelty - it's efficiency." Captain Bligh

An expensive but tepid remake of the 1935 classic, this version stars Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard in the Clark Gable and Charles Laughton roles. You can’t argue with the location – Tahiti is a beautiful place with beautiful people, and the actors appear to be having a ball, but the production is bloated and long-winded and you are soon looking at your watch wondering when it will all end.

The movie is a sea story, of men in a tall ship sent halfway around the world to get breadfruit seedlings to transplant in the colonies of Jamaica to feed the slaves, and if that proves successful, they plan to feed England, too.

The year is 1787, and the story is based on the novel by Nordhoff and Hall concerning a real-life mutiny, adapted for the screen by a bevy of screenwriters. The ill-fated production had a pair of directors, both top notch, Carol Reed (The Third Man) and Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front) Reed was fired or quit when faced with Brando's diva shenanigans and Milestone finished out the production and received credit, only to be abandoned from further directorial assignments following the lukewarm reception of the movie.

There is a dichotomy of opinion about Bounty; usually viewers either love or hate the movie. Brando admirers tend to give it high marks, while others cite the travelogue aspects and endless parties and dancing during the layover at Tahiti, not to mention indifferent acting performances from headliners Brando and Howard. I tend to agree that the movie is overlong and not up to maintaining interest due to the weak characterizations, not only of Brando and Trevor Howard, but also of third-billed Richard Harris and the five or six familiar faces who play the speaking parts of the crew.

Brando interprets Fletcher Christian as a fop, with loud clothes, a girl on each arm, and a variable English accent added to his nasal twang. The good humored character does an almost "Jekyll and Hyde" change when he finally decides enough is enough – this occurs when the ship is headed back to England stuffed with double the number of breadfruit seedlings that they were tasked with. This means the plants get water and the men don't according to Bligh who hangs the ladle at the top of the main mast. Brando just does not do a believable job with the transition from amiable first mate to outraged mutineer.

Neither is Trevor Howard (Captain Bligh) so interesting that he can maintain your attention over the three hours the movie runs - I would estimate the movie takes an hour to get to Tahiti; spends an hour there; and takes an hour for the aftermath. At least an hour of running time could be deleted and nothing would be lost. The few key scenes (like the mutiny) are overplayed and extended till any dramatic potential they may have had has been thoroughly wrung from them.

I believe also the rewrite of the 1935 screenplay did away with a lot of the drama. Captain Bligh was cast adrift in a longboat with his followers who navigated 3,600 miles over the open sea to Timor where they obtained passage to England. The 1935 version shows this voyage while the 1962 remake forgets Bligh once he goes into the longboat. They do show Bligh being acquitted by the Admiralty Board and a neat little slap in the face is administered by the chief judge played by old familiar face Henry Daniell.

The less said about the supporting cast, including the Tahitians, the better. Richard Harris, as the ringleader of the crew, is a pale example of the actor he would one day become and hardly deserved the billing he got. That goes double for Hugh Griffith and other familiar faces who make up the crew. Tarita is underwhelming but proves she can shake her pelvis quite well - but even this wears thin after an extended view.

Clearly, the photography is very good, especially if you see it in the 2.76:1 widescreen format. Full frame (tv format) cuts out a lot of the visual delights, as I've seen the old VHS double tape set. The 178-minute movie has entrance and exit music as well as an intermission complete with music. Bronislaw Kaper did the scoring and I found it blaring and bombastic, hardly suited to the imagery.

The new double disk MGM DVD contains the 3-hour movie, in color, in 2.76:1 theatrical format, divided over the two disks at the Entr'acte. The video is pristine but is still plodding and badly in need of editing to make it move along better. Special features including several featurettes on the ship itself, and the film's original prologue and epilogue (excised from the theatrical run) are provided for those who want even more Bounty. Alas, the special feature most would be interested in: the dirt on Brando's antics is left off the disk and must be sought for in books.

A mediocre effort; Give the filmmakers thirty lashes.

Great sea stories -

Moby Dick
Damn the Defiant!
Master and Commander

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above