Despite historical inaccuracies, the film was a huge box office success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1935 and one of MGM's biggest hits of the 1930s. The film was also a major critical success, and received a leading eight nominations at the 8th Academy Awards, winning Best Picture.
Plot
In 1787, William Bligh commands the Royal Naval merchant vessel HMS Bounty. Bligh is a brutal tyrant who routinely administers harsh punishment to officers and crew alike who lack discipline, cause any infraction on board the ship, or defy his authority in any manner. After press ganging a crew out of a local pub, the Bounty sets sail from Portsmouth on a two-year voyage across the Pacific, to transport breadfruit from the Polynesian islands to Jamaica.
Fletcher Christian, the ship's executive officer, is a formidable yet compassionate man who disapproves of Bligh's treatment of the crew. Roger Byam is an idealistic midshipman who is divided between his loyalty to Bligh, owing to his family's naval tradition, and his friendship with Christian.
During the voyage, the enmity between Christian and Bligh grows after Christian openly challenges Bligh's unjust practices aboard the ship. When the ship arrives at the island of Tahiti, where the crew acquires breadfruit plants to take to the West Indies, Bligh punishes Christian by refusing to let him leave the ship during their stay.
Byam, meanwhile, sets up residency on the island and lives with the island chief, Hitihiti (William Bambridge), and his daughter, Tehani, and he compiles an English dictionary of the Tahitian language. Hitihiti persuades Bligh to allow Christian a day pass on the island. Bligh agrees, but quickly repeals the pass out of spite. Christian disregards the order and spends his day off the ship romancing a Tahitian girl, Maimiti. Christian promises her he will be back someday.
After leaving Tahiti, the crew begins to talk of mutiny after Bligh's harsh discipline leads to the death of the ship's beloved surgeon, Mr.Bacchus, and Bligh severely cuts water rationing to the crew in favor of providing more water for the breadfruit plants.
Christian, although initially opposing the idea, decides he can no longer tolerate Bligh's brutality when he witnesses crew members shackled in iron chains, and he approves the mutiny. The crew raids the weapons cabinet and seizes the ship. Bligh and his loyalists are cast into a boat and set adrift at sea with a map and rations to ensure their survival. Due to Bligh's steady leadership, they are able to find their way back to land.
Meanwhile, Christian orders that Bounty return to Tahiti. Byam, who was in his cabin during the mutiny, disapproves of what Christian has done and decides the two can no longer be friends.
Months later, Byam is married to Tehani, and Christian has married Maimiti and has a child with her, while the rest of the crew are enjoying their freedom on the island. After a long estrangement, Byam and Christian reconcile their friendship. However, when the British ship HMS Pandora is spotted approaching, Byam and Christian decide they must part ways. Byam and several crew members remain on the island for the ship to take them back to England, while Christian leads the remaining crew, his wife, and several Tahitian men and women back on board Bounty in search of a new island on which to seek refuge.
Byam boards Pandora and, much to his surprise, discovers that Bligh is the captain. Bligh, who suspects that Byam was complicit in the mutiny, has him imprisoned for the remainder of the journey across the sea.
Back in England, Byam is court-martialed and found guilty of mutiny. Before the court condemns him, Byam speaks of Bligh's cruel, dehumanising conduct aboard Bounty. Due to the intervention of his friend Sir Joseph Banks and Lord Hood, Byam is pardoned by King George III and allowed to resume his naval career at sea.
Meanwhile, Christian has found Pitcairn, an uninhabited yet sustainable island that he believes will provide adequate refuge from the reach of the Royal Navy. After Bounty crashes on the rocks, Christian orders her to be burned.
The film is based on Mutiny on the Bounty and Men Against the Sea, the first two novels of The Bounty Trilogy written by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Director Frank Lloyd purchased the rights to the novel and offered to sell the project to MGM chief Irving Thalberg, on the condition that he be allowed to direct and star, and that the film be shot on-location in Tahiti. Thalberg agree to let Lloyd direct, but rejected his other demands.[4]
Frank Lloyd and Thalberg undertook extensive research of 18th century British naval customs and archival records pertaining to the actual mutiny, in a bid for his historical authenticity. Lloyd consulted genealogical charts in order to contact and interviewing living descendants of the original Bounty crew, transcripts of the court martials, and also read William Bligh's own memoir A Narrative of the Mutiny on His Majesty's Ship "Bounty".[4]
The film was originally conceived as a starring vehicle for Wallace Beery (as Bligh) and Robert Montgomery (as Byam), but both were replaced before production began.
Clark Gable was initially opposed to playing Christian, since it meant shaving his trademark mustache.[4]
Charles Laughton, who had a severe self-image complex concerning his weight and unattractive looks, suffered horribly in comparing himself to the handsome, masculine Clark Gable.[5] Laughton would constantly watch his own walk, gestures, and face, making sure not to let his complex be projected.[5]
During pre-production, Laughton discovered that Bligh's tailoring establishment still possessed one of Bligh's original transaction records, which contained the price as well as the measurements and type of material of his uniforms. At Laughton's request, the tailor used the records to reproduce Bligh's uniforms.[4]
Filming locations
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios – 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, United States (studio)
James Cagney (then on a hiatus from Warner Bros. during a contract dispute) and future stars David Niven and Dick Haymes were uncredited extras in the movie. Cagney is clearly visible toward the beginning of the film. He was sailing his boat near where the film was shooting near Catalina Island; director Frank Lloyd was an old friend of his, and Cagney asked him if he could play a small part in the film, saying, jokingly, "I need the money". Lloyd had Cagney dressed in a crewman's clothes and put him in the background of a few scenes.
A British merchant navy officer[6] recalled in his memoirs seeing the fore and aft-rigged schooner Commodore II being broken up in Cape Town in 1945, having suffered severe gale damage, and that this was the ship that had been re-rigged for the film.
Historical accuracy
The film's screenplay is based largely on the Nordhoff-Hall novels, and contains several historical inaccuracies.
The movie contains several historical inaccuracies. CaptainBligh was never on board HMSPandora, nor was he present at the trial of the mutineers who stayed on Tahiti.
At the time, he was halfway around the world on a second voyage for breadfruit plants. Fletcher Christian's father had died many years before Christian's travels on board Bounty, whereas the film shows the elder Christian at the trial. The movie was always presented as an adaptation of the Nordhoff and Hall trilogy, which already differed from the actual story of the mutiny.
Bligh is initially depicted as a brutal, sadistic disciplinarian, only becoming more sympathetic during the voyage to Timor. Particular episodes include a keelhauling and flogging a dead man. Neither of these happened. Keelhauling was used rarely, if at all, and had been abandoned long before Bligh's time. Indeed, the meticulous record of Bounty's log reveals that the flogging rate was lower than the average for that time.[7]
Prior to the mutiny, Bounty had only two deaths. One seaman, James Valentine, died of an ill-defined respiratory illness; logs indicate he was "seized with a violent hollow Cough and spit much." And the ship's surgeon, Thomas Huggan, apparently died of complications due to his chronic alcoholism, not as a result of abuse by Bligh. In fact, Bligh had threatened to seize and impound Huggan's alcohol stocks on account of him regularly being intoxicated while on duty, a threat Bligh eventually carried out. Huggan's constant drunkenness left Bligh little choice but to oversee key health issues himself. Notably, the crew had been examined constantly for scurvy, and Bligh – his expertise in this matter developed under Captain James Cook – had detected no verified signs of the illness at any time.
Likewise, the film shows the mutineers taking over the ship only after killing several loyal crewmen, when in fact none died (although one crewman came very close to shooting Bligh until stopped by Christian). Lastly, Christian is shown being inspired to take over the ship after several crewmen have unjustly been put into irons by Bligh; this is fictional.[citation needed]
In the final scene of the film, Christian gives a rousing speech to his fellow mutineers, speaking of creating a perfect society of free men on Pitcairn, away from Bligh and the navy. The reality was very different as mutineers enslaved Tahitian men.[8]
For historical accuracy, Clark Gable reluctantly had to shave off his moustache because the sailors in the Royal Navy in the 18th century had to be clean-shaven. Midshipman Roger Byam was based on a real person, Midshipman Peter Heywood, who is not listed in the novel or motion picture. Just as the fictional Byam is pardoned at the end of the film, the real-life Heywood was pardoned for his part in the mutiny. MGM trailers in 1935 made an error calling Midshipman Byam an ensign.
Mutineer Thomas Ellison is depicted as being allowed to see his wife before his execution. There is no record to indicate that the real Ellison was married, and in any case, a consolation visit of this type never would have been permitted in real life.
Reception
Advertorial poster
Contemporary reviews were enthusiastic. Andre Sennwald of The New York Times wrote, "Grim, brutal, sturdily romantic, made out of horror and desperate courage, it is as savagely exciting and rousingly dramatic a photoplay as has come out of Hollywood in recent years. The Nordhoff-Hall trilogy was, of course, born to be filmed, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has given it the kind of production a great story deserves."[9]The Hollywood Reporter raved that it was "one of the greatest films of all time", with "the epic sweep of the sea itself."[10]Variety called it "Hollywood at its very best. The story certainly could not have been presented as powerfully through any other medium."[11]Film Daily wrote, "This is one of the most important productions since the inception of talking pictures. It is grim, gripping and pictorially perfect."[12]John Mosher of The New Yorker declared that the filmmakers had "done a good, solid, fine job" and wrote that Laughton's performance as Captain Bligh "may not be exactly the image of the original brute, but it's a Laughton masterpiece."[13]Mutiny on the Bounty topped the annual Film Daily poll of 523 critics as the best film of 1936 (it was released too late in the year to appear on the 1935 ballot).[14][15]
Rotten Tomatoes reports a 96% approval rating based on 74 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.60/10. The site's consensus reads: "The historical inaccuracies in this high-seas adventure are more than offset by its timeless themes, larger-than-life performances from Clark Gable and Charles Laughton, and Frank Lloyd's superb direction".[16]
Box office
According to MGM records the film earned $2,250,000 in the US and Canada and $2,210,000 elsewhere resulting in a profit of $909,000.[1]
It was the 3rd most popular film at the British box office in 1935–36.[17]
In 1940 Frank Lloyd was reported as wanting to make a film about the life of Captain Bligh starring Spencer Tracy or Charles Laughton, at Universal. It was never made.[18]
In 1945, it was reported that MGM would make a sequel with Gable, Christian of the Bounty. It would be based on a novel by Charles Nordhoff about Christian's romantic adventures in England and South America following the colonization of Pitcairn Island and would be produced by Carey Wilson.[19] It was never made.
Other film versions
A 1962 three-hour-plus widescreenTechnicolorremake, starring Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian and Trevor Howard as Capt. Bligh, was a disaster both critically and financially at the time. Nonetheless, the remake was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
In 1984, Mel Gibson played Christian opposite Anthony Hopkins as Bligh in a film (based not upon the Nordhoff-Hall novels but on an historical work by Richard Hough) called The Bounty. This latest version, which gives a far more sympathetic view of Bligh, is considered to be the closest to historical events.
The 1935 version was itself not the first film account of the mutiny. In 1933 an Australian film entitled In the Wake of the Bounty, with the then-unknown Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian, was released, but was not successful and received few bookings outside Australia. Flynn noted in his autobiography that whenever he mentioned that he'd played Christian in an Australian version of Mutiny on the Bounty two years before Gable, no one ever believed him. There was also an even earlier film, the 1916 Australian–New Zealand film, The Mutiny on the Bounty directed by Raymond Longford.
Parodies
Friz Freleng's cartoon Mutiny on the Bunny casts Yosemite Sam (called Shanghai Sam) as a foul-tempered skipper who shanghais Bugs Bunny, only to see Bugs rebel. Also, in one scene in Freleng's earlier Buccaneer Bunny, Bugs dresses up as Capt. Bligh (including a visual and vocal impression of Charles Laughton) and barks out orders to Sam (called Seagoin' Sam).
Morecambe and Wise performed a sketch with Arthur Lowe (who played Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army) as Captain Bligh. At the end of the sketch it is announced Bligh has some loyal crewmen who turn out to be other cast members of Dad's Army.
"Holidays at Home", a 1978 episode of It Ain't Half Hot Mum, includes a dream sequence where the sitcom's cast enact scenes from the film.
The Simpsons episode "The Wettest Stories Ever Told" features the family telling stories set on ships. The second segment is a parody on Mutiny on the Bounty and casts Principal Skinner as Capt. Bligh, brutalizing the crew members (played by Bart, Milhouse, Martin, Nelson, Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney).
Related Research Articles
Vice-Admiral William Bligh was a British officer in the Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. He is best known for the mutiny on HMS Bounty, which occurred in 1789 when the ship was under his command. The reasons behind the mutiny continue to be debated. After being set adrift in Bounty's launch by the mutineers, Bligh and those loyal to him stopped for supplies on Tofua, losing a man to natives. Bligh and his men reached Timor alive, after a journey of 3,618 nautical miles.
Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1932 novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, based on the mutiny against Lieutenant William Bligh, commanding officer of the Bounty in 1789. It has been made into several films and a musical. It was the first of what became The Bounty Trilogy, which continues with Men Against the Sea, and concludes with Pitcairn's Island.
The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and eighteen loyalists adrift in the ship's open launch. The reasons behind the mutiny are still debated. Bligh and his crew stopped for supplies on Tofua, losing a man to natives. Bligh navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles in the launch to reach safety and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island.
The Bounty is a 1984 British epic historical drama film directed by Roger Donaldson. It depicts the voyage and mutiny of HMS Bounty, with Robert Bolt's screenplay adapting the 1972 book Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian by Richard Hough. It stars Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian and Anthony Hopkins as William Bligh, with supporting roles played by Laurence Olivier, Daniel Day-Lewis, Liam Neeson, Bernard Hill and Edward Fox.
The Mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny on HMS Bounty that occurred in 1789.
Fletcher Christian was a British sailor who led the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789, during which he seized command of the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty from Lieutenant William Bligh.
Pōmare I was the unifier and first king of Tahiti and founder of the Pōmare dynasty and the Kingdom of Tahiti between 1788 and 1791. He abdicated in 1791 but remained in power as the guardian regent during the minority of his successor Pōmare II from 1791 until 1803. He is best known in the western world for being the ruler of Tahiti during the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789.
HMS Pandora was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy launched in May 1779. The vessel is best known for its role in hunting down the Bounty mutineers in 1790, which remains one of the best-known stories in the history of seafaring. Pandora was partially successful by capturing 14 of the mutineers, but wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef on the return voyage in 1791. HMS Pandora is considered to be one of the most significant shipwrecks in the Southern Hemisphere.
Captain Peter Heywood was a British Royal Navy officer who was on board HMS Bounty during the mutiny of 28 April 1789. He was later captured in Tahiti, tried and condemned to death as a mutineer, but subsequently pardoned. He resumed his naval career and eventually retired with the rank of post-captain, after 29 years of honourable service.
Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1962 American Technicolor epic historical drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, and Richard Harris. The screenplay was written by Charles Lederer, based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Bronisław Kaper composed the score.
James Morrison (1760–1807) was a British seaman and mutineer who took part in the Mutiny on the Bounty.
In the Wake of the Bounty (1933) is an Australian film directed by Charles Chauvel about the 1789 Mutiny on the Bounty. It is notable as the screen debut of Errol Flynn, playing Fletcher Christian. The film preceded MGM's more famous Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, by two years.
HMS Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel Bounty, was a British merchant ship that the Royal Navy purchased in 1787 for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the South Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the British West Indies. That mission was never completed owing to a 1789 mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian, an incident now popularly known as the Mutiny on the Bounty. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island in the Southern Pacific Ocean in 1790. An American adventurer helped land several remains of Bounty in 1957.
The Mutiny of the Bounty is a 1916 Australian-New Zealand silent film directed by Raymond Longford about the mutiny aboard HMS Bounty. It is the first known cinematic dramatisation of this story and is considered a lost film.
Charles Bernard Nordhoff was an American novelist and traveler, born in England. Nordhoff is perhaps best known for The Bounty Trilogy, three historical novels he wrote with James Norman Hall: Mutiny on the Bounty (1932), Men Against the Sea (1934) and Pitcairn's Island (1934). During World War I, he served as a driver in the Ambulance Corps as well as an aviator in both the French Air Force's Lafayette Flying Corps and the United States Army Air Service, reaching the rank of lieutenant. After the war, Nordhoff spent much of his life on the island of Tahiti, where he and Hall wrote a number of successful adventure books, many adapted for film.
Matavai Bay is a bay on the north coast of Tahiti, the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia. It is in the commune of Mahina, approximately 8 km east of the capital Pape'ete.
The complement of HMS Bounty, the Royal Navy ship on which a historic mutiny occurred in the south Pacific on 28 April 1789, comprised 46 men on its departure from England in December 1787 and 44 at the time of the mutiny, including her commander Lieutenant William Bligh. All but two of those aboard were Royal Navy personnel; the exceptions were two civilian botanists engaged to supervise the breadfruit plants Bounty was tasked to take from Tahiti to the West Indies. Of the 44 aboard at the time of the mutiny, 19 were set adrift in the ship's launch, while 25, a mixture of mutineers and detainees, remained on board under Fletcher Christian. Bligh led his loyalists 3,500 nautical miles to safety in the open boat, and ultimately back to England. The mutineers divided—most settled on Tahiti, where they were captured by HMS Pandora in 1791 and returned to England for trial, while Christian and eight others evaded discovery on Pitcairn Island.
Tyrant of the Sea is a 1950 American historical war film set during the Napoleonic Wars and starring Ron Randell, Rhys Williams and Lester Matthews. It was directed by Lew Landers.
Charles Churchill (1759–1790) was the master at arms on board HMAV Bounty during Lieutenant William Bligh's voyage to Tahiti to transplant breadfruit to the British colonies in the West Indies. During a mutiny on the ship, Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian seized command of the ship from Bligh on 28 April 1789. Churchill was an active member of the mutiny, being a member of Fletcher Christian's loyalists that arrested Bligh in his cabin.
William Peckover was a gunner in the Royal Navy and served on several vessels, most notably several commanded by James Cook or William Bligh.
References
1 2 3 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
↑ "The Film Business in the United States and Britain during the 1930s" by John Sedgwick and Michael Pokorny, The Economic History ReviewNew Series, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Feb., 2005), pp.97
↑ "TWO STUDIOS PLAN A BOUNTY 'MUTINY': M-G-M and Paramount Race to Complete Productions of Films on Sea Adventure". New York Times. November 2, 1959. p.39.
↑ "NEWS OF THE SCREEN: M-G-M to Make 'Christian of Bounty,' With Gable-- 'Southerner' Premiere Again Postponed Of Local Origin". New York Times. August 14, 1945. p.17.
↑ In real life, Bligh was a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, but as captain of a vessel would be regarded and addressed as a Captain, relative to that vessel. In the film, he is only ever referred to as 'Captain'.
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