crisbetts2075

A difficult one to evaluate. The 'Bounty' segments are pretty dire, with some appallingly melodramatic scripting and truly horrific acting, including - in fact especially - from Mr Flynn, who is making the debut that resulted in Warners' publicity department making up, wholesale, the fiction that the swashbuckler was descended from Fletcher Christian. The travelogue sections are a not-very-credible rose-tinted view of the islanders' hardy stoicism and community spirit in what was essentially a theocratic dictatorship. But, the self-conscious and pompous narration is convincing and they are nevertheless rather interesting in spite of that...

This is a fairy tale, but, as fairy tales go, quite a nice one.

It's interesting to see Hollywood's take on Britain under the Blitz - lots of chirpy cockneys cracking jokes as the bombs fall and irascible tea shop proprietors laying down the law.

Most of Hollywood's ex-pat Brit community turns out in roles that must have been bread-and-butter to them - Gladys Cooper as the snooty old patrician lady, Nigel Bruce in amiable-oaf mode, Queenie Leonard as the tart-with-a-heart, Melville Cooper as the dopey uncle.

Joan and Ty look gorgeous and do a professional job with the script, even when it gets a bit sticky (Joan's cliché-ridden eulogy of England is particularly painful).

If you can swallow the stereotypes and suspend your disbelief, there are worse ways of spending 110 minutes!