Frank Lloyd became the first director to helm two Best Picture winners, with Cavalcade having taken home the statue just two years earlier. You won’t find two more different films than Cavalcade and Mutiny on the Bounty, and the latter is a much stronger film. Likewise, Clark Gable was the leading man in back to back winners, having just played the lead role in Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night the year before. Gable continued his rise to super-stardom in Mutiny, playing the virtuous mutineer Fletcher Christian opposite the equally brilliant Charles Laughton, who played the maniacally menacing Captain Bligh. Francot Tone played the young idealistic Midshipman Roger Byam,and all three men were nominated for Best Actor.
I’m going to say that again.
Clark Gable, Charles Laughton and Francot Tone were all three nominated for Best Actor for the roles that they played in Mutiny on the Bounty.
As for the film itself, it is terrific and deserves to be called a classic. The storyline is very well paced and the tension in the story grows as the relationship between Christian and Bligh deteriorates. Ever the disciplinarian, Bligh seems to take a type of carnal pleasure in seeing men whipped and beaten. His discipline is beyond sadistic and more than cruel. Christian is a good sailor and an obedient officer, but he can’t abide Bligh’s cruelty. He takes the young and impressionable Byam under his wing and tries to teach him the right way to be an officer, and in an ironic way, that turns Byam against Christian during the mutiny even though the two of them have become good friends.
The premise of the film has the H.M.S. Bounty sailing from Portsmouth, England to Tahiti in order to transport breadfruit plants to the West Indies. Christian recruits the sailors to join the crew, although the word “recruit” is probably the wrong way to say it. They’re more like indentured servants, as many of them are drunkards and former criminals who are pressed into service. Bligh commands his officers to be quick with the lash from the beginning despite Christian’s pleas that they’re going to be on this small ship for the next two years and perhaps mercy might be the better rout. Despite being a religious man, Bligh thinks exactly the opposite and demands strict discipline. Men are flogged. Men are keel-hauled. Men die. As soon as Christian starts to question Bligh’s tactics more seriously, as well as telling him that he’s going to demand a court of inquiry upon their return to England, Bligh turns on Christian as well. He never has him flogged, but he does accuse him of stealing bananas and cheese, even though it was Bligh himself who pilfered them. This doesn’t sit well with Christian and the seeds of discontent firmly take root.
They arrive in Tahiti and are there for several weeks. Byam has been charged with the task of creating a dictionary for translating the Tahitian language into English. Although Christian has been kept aboard the ship by Bligh, the Tahitian king insists that he come ashore, where he soon falls in love with one of the native girls.
They return to sea having tasted the paradise that was Tahiti and now are in for another year of the Bounty as a floating Hell. Barely at sea for a few weeks, Christian reaches his breaking point and starts the mutiny. He puts Bligh and the other officers in a longboat 500 miles from any port of call and sets them adrift. Byam, having not taken part in the mutiny demands to be put in the boat with Bligh, but they’ve already been set adrift. Christian tells Byam that if he doesn’t try to stall the mutiny, he’ll be safe and will be sent to England as soon as possible.
Incredibly, ironically, and against all odds, Bligh heroically leads the officers for weeks of desperate time on the unrelenting sea to a safe harbor. Even the sea cannot beat him.
Christian, meanwhile, has taken the Bounty back to Tahiti where he has married the native girl and had a child. By Christmas time he and Byam have reconciled, but Byam still remains loyal to the navy. Christian understands and asks Byam to see his father if he ever makes it back to England and tell him what really happened. That he didn’t dishonor his uniform, and that men sometimes have to go down the wrong path in order to do what’s right.
Having been brought to England, Bligh returns to Tahiti for Christian and the other mutineers. They all get on the Bounty and escape. Thinking they’re rescued, Byam and the other officers who didn’t mutiny go aboard Bligh’s ship and are promptly clapped in irons. Bligh demands to know where Christian went, but the men honestly don’t know. Not believing them, Bligh resumes his obsessive hunt of Christian, but is unable to find him, eventually wrecking their ship on a reef.
Upon their return to England, Byam and the others are put on trial. Resentful of Byam’s friendship with Christian, and furious that they were never able to find Christian, Bligh sets his wrath upon Byam, making sure that he is convicted and condemned. After receiving the news that he will hang, Byam passionately tells the court and Bligh that he flogged and mistreated men not to punish, but to break their spirit. He was a tyrant as a captain and one man wouldn’t stand for his tyranny, and the reason Bligh hates him so is that Christian has won. He is still free and beyond the reach of Bligh’s menace.
The court adjourns and one of the Admiralty tells Bligh that while he admires his seamanship, his tactics as captain are deplorable.
Byam’s case is taken to the king who offers him clemency and his commission is returned. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world Christian finds an island where he and his family and friends can live freely and without fear.
There is a lot going on in this film thematically that should be instructive to any screenwriter. There are internal conflicts in the characters that create terrific drama. This is a story about loyalty to friends vs. loyalty to duty. It’s about the fact that sometimes the difference between right and wrong isn’t so black and white. The wrong thing on the surface, the thing that will get you in trouble and put your very life in danger, is the thing that you must do because deep down it’s what’s right. Ultimately this is a film about right and wrong and how the lines between those seemingly simple concepts can be blurred in ways that are very complicated.
From a storytelling and thematic perspective, this is a very strong film that any aspiring screenwriter should see and study.
The one thing that bothered me, ironically enough, was Clark Gable. He gives a fine performance in this film, and his character is deep and rich with both grace and flaws. But every other character in the film spoke with an English accent except for Gable. He was as American as he was in It Happened One Night and as he would be a few years later in Gone With the Wind. You can live with it for most of the film until he starts telling Byam about where he grew up and all of the very English-sounding places he’s been. Hearing this story told by a man with an accent that’s as American as apple pie is a bit distracting. Otherwise, I have very few complaints about this film.
Did the Academy get it right?
The answer is yes. Certainly Les Miserables is a classic, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, David Copperfield and The Broadway Melody of 1936 are all memorable films. However Mutiny on the Bounty is a special film that is on another level from those other films. It had marvelous direction, star power in the cast, and an engaging and compelling script. It’s also a grand exposition of film making for its time, and it deserved to be named Outstanding Production of 1935.