USA 132m Dir: Frank Lloyd Key Cast: Charles Laughton and Clark Gable
I was expecting a pretty stuffy historical drama here but instead it's a very watchable piece of brilliance.
In 1787 the HMS Bounty sets sail on a mission to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti. Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton) is a tyrannical leader, overseeing brutal punishments for the slightest misdemeanours that sometimes even lead to the victim's deaths. First Officer Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) tries to soften Bligh but fails and even the officers find themselves in Bligh's bad books. There is peace when the ship reaches Tahiti and Christian has a romance on the island but when the ship set sails again things are worse than ever and Christian and the crew can face no more.
For some reason I get a particular kick out of a film which depicts conflict with a hideous bully. Bligh is truly awful in this film. He's the type of leader who can't bare to be questioned and believes the only way to gain respect is to brutally punish anyone that fails to follow orders. He even happily steals supplies and blames them on the crew. The end of his reign of terror is really satisfying but it does pose a moral dilemma- how to you punish him without being worse than him? And is the very act of mutiny wrong?
Whilst Laughton is great as Bligh it's Clark Gable who is the star here. His role is quite different to many of his characters, not least as for reasons of historical accuracy he had to reluctantly shave off his famous moustache. There's nothing roguish about Fletcher Christian, he's a gentleman and a brilliant man who tries to do his best for his crew. Sometimes you watch a film and really love a character and that was how I felt about Fletcher Christian. Gable is so fantastic playing a different type of role to the rakish anti-hero he's most famous for playing and it's my favourtie performance from him.
The main plot kind of drifts away when the Bounty reaches Tahiti and I thought I would lose interest a bit but no, it becomes a charming romance. Rarely does a film really manage to capture a sense of place but this one does, somehow managing to capture the atmosphere and the simple, relaxed life on the island, perhaps because it compares it with the brutal life on board the Bounty.
There are some historical inaccuracies here but they are mostly because the film is based on the novel by James Norman Hall rather than directly on the historical event. I didn't really have much problem with the changes, the vast majority were appear to be an exaggeration of what was happening on the Bounty and over ships in the British navy at the time.
You can tell this film had a sizeable budget because it looks excellent with the ship they use working excellently as the Bounty and the film really managing to look like it was made at sea. This sort of film can fall apart if it avoids using the ship and mostly uses interior scenes shot in a studio and fortunately they really don't do that here.
I just loved everything about this film with the highlight being the never-better Clark Gable as the wonderful Fletcher Christian.
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