Highly Overrated But Still Good

Brilliant and touching

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

I admit to not being that familiar with many of Clark Gable's movies except of course "Gone With The Wind". It was weird how I didn't even recognize him at first. That's actually probably a good thing seeing as how an actor should be used to different kinds of performances. With Oscar Month on TCM, they had to feature this. This is based on a true story which I had in fact heard of. I think the only bad thing about this movie is that it is a little too long. Of course, when telling a story based on true events you really do need all the time you can get. I was kind of turned off by the idea of a whole movie taking place on a ship.That's why I was rather pleasantly surprised to see that it also took place on an island. I really do love the atmosphere this creates. Everything comes off as so authentic and you really just get a great sense of fun with these parts. I was kind of surprised at how violent this movie got. This actually showed some pretty graphic depiction of blood, a rarity back then. I still love how we focus on everyone's individual stories. As a history buff, it's always nice to learn more about significant historical events and I don't recall this from history class. Clark Gable was against being in a movie without romance although some of the crew men has some cute little relationships with the natives. ***1/2

Mutiny on the bounty is one of the finest films I have ever seen, and a rare beast of a film at that. It succeeds in everything a film should, with an interesting story, idyllic and realistic acting, and a wonderful feeling. The leading performances of Charles Laughton, Clarke Gable and Franchot Tone are the ones of legend. The fact that the 3 of them canceled each other both in the film and in the Oscar for Best Actor is a common fact. Laughton's scenes as the ruthless Captain Bligh succeed not only in making me believe he was a British Naval Officer of the late 18th century, but also made me loather him. Rarely do we see actors throwing themselves into their roles like this. Gable's Fletcher Christian is perhaps some of the more daring characters I have seen on the screen, with Gable wisely not trying his hand at a British accent and shaving that iconic mustache. Gable's performance is among his career's best, and he seemed to fit naturally within the plot and his talented co-stars. The scenes when he finally loses his temper and lets go of his bottled emotions are awe-striking. Franchot Tone, in one of his first film roles, steals the show with his earnest, wise and passionate turn as Roger Byam. His speech in the final moments of the film is the greatest monologue I have heard in a film, especially due to his criticism of brutality at the seas, and that of Captain Bligh. If the Academy even saw that scene, they should have given the thing to him. One of the best movies Ever.

If you live long enough you will eventually fall under the employment of someone who reminds you of Captain Bligh. It seems odd to say, but he could stand for all the stiff, unflinching, immobile employers whose duty is to a strict regimen of routine while any consideration of the human element is basically superfluous. What's worse is the moment when you can sense of perverse joy in their sadism and the uncomfortable feeling that they are smarter than you are.In life this is a problem, but at the movie it is the stuff of great drama. Great villains have no filter, no rules. The space of their actions is unpredictable and worse, they can reveal levels of themselves that are deeper and cleverer than we might imagine. That is to the key to the most memorable of movie villains, Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader, Harry Lime, Nurse Ratched, Hans Beckert, The Terminator, Dr, Szell, HAL 9000, and The Wicked Witch of the West. There is always something up their sleeve.This also key to Captain Bligh. All through Mutiny on the Bounty we follow the machinations of a man for whom duty to the crown is more important than the attentiveness to his crew, a man who is a sadist, ordering punishments and cutting rations simply because he has the authority to do so.Mutiny on the Bounty is loosely based on the real-life 1789 takeover the HMS Bounty after the ship's company and crew endured months of cruel tyranny and punishments and severe cutbacks of the basic necessities of food and water. Bligh commands The Bounty with an iron will, and we get a sense of his diseased mind even before the ship leaves port. He orders the flogging of a man charged with striking an officer even after the ship's doctor informs him that the accused is dead. He demands strict adherence to the rules even in death.Our point of view is led by Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable), the ship's first mate, an officer who is tough but very fair – he is the kind of tough but tolerable officer who can command the seas as well as his crew with a balance of humanity and efficiency. The movie that surrounds him is somewhat simple-minded. It seems loosely constructed as a model on which to portray his cruelty that leads to the inevitable mutiny.Laughton's performance is proof that even the most mundane material can be livened by one performance. And what a performance it is. It is all in his eyes. When Christian confronts him there is a buried insecurity, a paranoia that runs down into his bones. He knows that if he is too lenient on his crew that they will take advantage but if he rules with an iron fist they will keep their place.Eventually, Christian rouses the men to rise against their tyrannical master and take command of the ship. In the most famous moment, as Bligh and his loyal followers are about to be set out to sea in a small boat he makes a famous proclamation to the revolting crew: "Casting me adrift thirty-five hundred miles from a port of call! You're sending me to my doom, eh? Well, you're wrong, Christian. I'll take this boat, as she floats, to England if I must. I'll live to see you — all of you — hanging from the highest yardarm in the British fleet!" Fletcher Christian tells him "I'll take my chances against the law - You'll take yours against the sea". We are conditioned, like Christian, to believe that no man and his crew could survive against the open seas in a small boat. But we are startled to find that the most frightening aspect of Bligh is that he is really smarter than we think. Left for dead on the rough seas in a small boat with little to eat and little to drink, it is assumed that he and the crew will perish but Christian has overlooked his skills as a seaman. An expert navigator, Bligh guides the small boat on a 3600 mile journey to safety, to the coast of Timor in the East Dutch Indies while The Bounty turns toward the isolated safety of Tahiti.What stays with me in Captain Bligh is the immobile manner. There's something that we can all identify with, working for someone who is hardbound to the letter of the rules but is ignorant of the human condition. What we miss is that there's a reason that Bligh is in command and the movie reveals that when he and his crew are set adrift. Bligh, ever the master seaman, makes a 3600 mile journey in a tiny boat to Timor in the West Indies. Bearded, exhausted, he proclaims that "We've beaten the sea itself".The performance would become Laughton's legacy but for Laughton himself he felt that he gave better performances elsewhere. He didn't disown the role but he felt that it didn't fill the capacity of what he could do. Yet, I couldn't deny him the performance, it is a brilliant, tricky performance, one at which a seemingly one-dimensional character outsmarts even those of us who think we have him figured out.

I had seen a few clips of this original film, I knew there was a version with Marlon Brando, I found out about another with Mel Gibson, and I was keen to see the original because of the leading villain character, and this was in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Basically, set in 1787, the HMS Bounty is on a two year voyage from Great Britain, sailing the Pacific Ocean, to Tahiti to collect a supply of breadfruit plants to be transported to Jamaica. The ship is under the command of greedy and brutal tyrant Captain William Bligh (Oscar nominated Charles Laughton), second in command is first mate Fletcher Christian (Oscar nominated Clark Gable) who along with the men is finding his harsh leadership unpleasant and questionable. Arriving in Tahiti the men all take leave for a short time while the plants are placed in cargo, Christian is initially refused to take leave by Bligh, but he persuades him, and there, with midshipman friend Roger Byam (Oscar nominated Franchot Tone) they form close bonds with island women Tehanni (Movita) and Maimiti (Mamo Clark), before being forced to leave. Following the departure from paradise Christian and the crew have had too much of the harsh treatment from the Captain, and they band together in mutiny to overthrow Bligh, and set him and his supporters adrift in a boat, while the Bounty returns to Tahiti. The men in the boat assume that with the little food and drink they have that they will not last very long, but Bligh urges them to keep going, and they do manage to find land and salvation, and meanwhile Christian has married Maimiti and all of the mutineers are living the tropical life to the fullest. They are surprised when the ship Pandora from Britain comes into view, and being taken aboard they are even more surprised to see Bligh alive and well, he is taking them back to England to face the charges of mutiny, and despite the court hearings and imprisonments, everything seems to settle in the end, Christian returns to another tropical island, and the Bounty is burned down. Also starring Herbert Mundin as Smith, Eddie Quillan as Ellison, Dudley Digges as Bacchus, Donald Crisp as Burkitt, Henry Stephenson as Sir Joseph Banks, Francis Lister as Captain Nelson, Spring Byington as Mrs. Byam, and apparently James Cagney and David Niven are extras somewhere. Laughton is a great character actor and plays villain Bligh very well, and Gable as the good looking hero is likable, and he was apparently uncomfortable in his first costume movie, the story has some great scenes on the high seas and in tropical palm tree and beach paradise, and the sweeping swashbuckler sequences with cutlasses and costume are worthwhile, a terrific classic historical adventure. It won the Oscar for Best Picture, and it was nominated for Best Director for Frank Lloyd, Best Writing, Screenplay, Best Film Editing and Best Music for Nat W. Finston (head of department) and Herbert Stothart. Captain Bligh was number 19 on 100 Years, 100 Heroes & Villains, Charles Laughton was number 45 on The 50 Greatest British Actors, and he was number 37 on The World's Greatest Actor, and the film was number 86 on 100 Years, 100 Movies. Very good!