Rent Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Epic Adventure - Mutiny on the Bounty review by Steve

This ambitious MGM historical drama is one of the grandest productions of the 1930s. It recreates the brutal conditions on a British merchant ship in 1787, the year of the famous mutiny against William Bligh (Charles Laughton) led by Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable). Laughton overacts to huge effect, making Bligh one of the great screen villains, but also a caricature.

Ships' companies were sometimes press-ganged, or co-opted convicts who had their sentences transmuted. This Bounty is crewed by a gang of expat British character actors who have to combine providing the comic relief, singing nautical ballads and dancing the hornpipe with contributing a growing background noise of justified resentment.

 It's an epic adventure yarn that tells the broad outline of history faithfully. It only really slows during the sojourn to the paradise island of Tahiti, but we do get to see the surprising homoerotic cavorting of the bare chested Gable and Franchot Tone. It is the unbuckling of traditional order during this stopover that makes Bligh's resumed malevolence finally unbearable.

The film tries to find a balance between its two protagonists. It must ultimately side with Christian but it doesn't overlook the harmful consequences of mutiny. The film tidies up its themes at the end too conveniently to be credible. But as a spectacle, Mutiny on the Bounty is magnificent. It puts an entire historic world and seagoing way of life on screen with a lively vigour. It remains one of the great Hollywood naval films and the best version of this story.