When you go as far back as the mid-Thirties, the movie landscape is cluttered with a vast variety of B programmers - mysteries, Westerns, crime films, exploitation flicks and a whole lot more. The rare standout is a picture like "Mutiny on the Bounty", produced on an epic scale with an almost unheard of run time of two hours. Even rarer is an intelligent story line moving from a starting point to a finale that builds drama and excitement while developing the main characters.
The story is a well known one, even if one has only a passing familiarity with the various screen versions. A tyrannical ship's captain rules his crew with an iron fist, while his first mate gradually begins to question the brutal methods used to instill fear and loyalty. As Captain Bligh, Charles Laughton seems fairly at home in a role that he reprised in various incarnations on the big screen, particularly as the haughty squire Sir Humphrey Pengallan in 1939's "Jamaica Inn", and later as the title character in 1945's "Captain Kidd". To look at him, Laughton seems to have all the characteristics needed for a pirate of the high seas, except perhaps for an eye-patch and a hook for an arm. Laughton's treatment of his role here as an exalted British naval commander gives one pause to consider his methods, made memorable by frequent whippings to keep the crew in line, even if they're already dead.
As first mate Fletcher Christian, Clark Gable is forced to balance his opinion of Bligh, maintaining loyalty to command while favoring more civil methods to win the respect and loyalty of the men on board the Bounty. The turning point in the story occurs with the death of ship's surgeon Bacchus (Dudley Digges), a position of no return when Christian casts Bligh and his supporters adrift - "I'll take my chance against the law, you'll take yours against the sea".
What's probably most remarkable about the historical facts behind the story is Bligh's miraculous journey back to dry land over a distance of some thirty five hundred miles. For those who stood trial for mutiny once recovered from the island of Tahiti, a gallant soliloquy is delivered by seaman Roger Byam (Franchot Tone) on behalf of the crew who remained loyal to Bligh. Of the three principal characters, it's Byam who was the most conflicted, renouncing Christian's friendship while maintaining some of his own sympathetic feelings for the men who suffered the Captains' wrath.
With occasional interludes on the island of Tahiti to relieve some of the shipboard tension, "Mutiny on the Bounty" delivers a nice blend of action, adventure, intrigue, romance and the occasional humor supplied by Herbert Mundin's unique casting as a reluctant seaman. The more exotic locales of the picture often cry out for a color treatment, and though that's addressed in the 1950 and 1962 remakes, there's something about the original that makes it endure as first among equals, even if historical accuracy is a frequent victim. True cinema fans will want to view all three to make up their own mind.
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