Mutiny on the Bounty
HMS Bounty sails for Tahiti by way of Cape Horn... and into movie lore as an American Film Institute Top-100 American Films selection. Grandly filmed, Mutiny on the Bounty captured the 1935 Best Picture Academy Award and eight nominations total. Charles Laughton portrays Captain Bligh, a seafaring monster ruling with the law of fear.
Solidifying his status as Hollywood's #1 male star, Clark Gable is first officer Fletcher Christian, whose will to obey erodes under Bligh's tyranny. And Franchot Tone plays idealistic midshipman Byam, torn by his allegiance to both. That all three portrayals are vividly memorable is accented by the fact that for the only time in Oscar history, three stars from the same film were Best Actor nominees.
Member Reviews
Oldie but goodie - Ojay
Not nearly as dated as you'd expect of a 1935 film, Mutiny features some amazing cinematography for its era. The big surprise, though, is the realist style of acting. Charles Laughton is amazing as the nasty captain. Clark Gable does get a little gung-ho Yankee at times, but he's also fun to watch. Well worth it for classic film fans.Plenty Full Of Fun - Squish
Expecting Clark Gable to be the next swashbuckling, knife-in-the-mouth, sail-carving Douglas Fairbanks-grade stunty frontman for this film, it quickly became apparent that Mutiny on The Bounty, though filled with a fair bit of comedic levity, would honour the true tale of a crew who'd suffered enough at the hands of the now-infamous Captain Bligh to do a deed so heinous as to risk death for a chance at freedom from oppression.
We're immediately thrust into the noble/serf oppression theme of the film with the opening scene. The British Navy forcibly enlists unwilling crewmen for a two-year trip to Tahiti. And, rather than drumming up the sentiment of a noble adventure on the high seas, those opening credits are quite honest in the purpose of the trip - to gather breadfruit plants and transport them to the West Indies with the purpose of finding a cheaper way of feeding slaves. Ah what a different world we lived in. From this point on, we see ever more tyrannical examples of Bligh's command and the aftermath of the events of a ships' mutiny, certainly an exciting and entertaining story.
Laughton plays a perfect angry little man, and though it would have been nice to see more of his character's 'exceptional seafaring skills' on the Bounty to flesh Bligh out a little more, his supporting role to Gable's Fletcher Christian is fiercely well played. Gable is as classic as you'd expect, and the supporting cast is perfectly directed.
Add a massive budget and beautiful locations and we have in Mutiny On The Bounty a film very deserving of placement on the 1001 Movies you Should See Before You Die list.Quite Possibly The Best Movie Of The 1930's - revsdd
"Mutiny On The Bounty" is in every way a classic example of movie-making at its finest. Technically the film is superb. Well filmed and with realistic sets, the viewer feels as if he really is on an 18th century British Navy vessel. I remember as a teenager coming across this movie halfway through and not really knowing what it was about but being captured by the vividly realistic portrayal of life at sea. That feeling has never gone away when I watch it. The performances are breath-taking. Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian and Franchot Tone as Roger Byam are excellent, but it is Charles Laughton as Bligh who steals the show. Everything about Laughton in this film screams "Captain Bligh," and his is almost certainly the face that comes to mind when one contemplates the historical figure of Bligh. All three were nominated for Oscars, as was director Frank Lloyd (and inexplicably failed to win, although the film itself was named 1935's Best Picture.) The film mixes adventure, gripping drama and even humour into about two and a quarter hours of sheer enjoyment.
You can quibble about a few things. Apparently history suggests that Bligh might not have been quite this sadistic nor Christian quite so noble. There's a strange shot of the Bounty being run aground by Christian at Pitcairn Island, and as the ship is about to crash into the island the film inexplicably reverses and the end of the shot is clearly going backward for about 2 seconds. I admit that it was passing strange that both Fletcher Christian and Roger Byam speak with American accents, making one wonder how these guys were in the British Navy and at the end the movie gets a bit preachy (particularly Byam's speech to his court-martial.) But these are minor and do not detract from one's enjoyment of the film.
This is one of the few movies I've ever come across that I would call a "must-see." It is, in every way, a masterpiece.
Member Reviews
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Oldie but goodie - Ojay
Not nearly as dated as you'd expect of a 1935 film, Mutiny features some amazing cinematography for its era. The big surprise, though, is the realist style of acting. Charles Laughton is amazing as the nasty captain. Clark Gable does get a little gung-ho Yankee ...Plenty Full Of Fun - Squish
Expecting Clark Gable to be the next swashbuckling, knife-in-the-mouth, sail-carving Douglas Fairbanks-grade stunty frontman for this film, it quickly became apparent that Mutiny on The Bounty, though filled with a fair bit of comedic levity, would honour ...Quite Possibly The Best Movie Of The 1930's - revsdd
"Mutiny On The Bounty" is in every way a classic example of movie-making at its finest. Technically the film is superb. Well filmed and with realistic sets, the viewer feels as if he really is on an 18th century British Navy vessel. I remember as a teenager ...