Mutiny on the Bounty
1935
Release date: 11/8/1935 (N.Y. Premiere)
132 minutes
Director: Frank Lloyd
Screenplay: Talbot Jennings & Jules Furthman and Carey Wilson
Based on the Novel by: Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
Producers: Frank Lloyd, Irving Thalberg
Associate Producer: Albert Lewin
Cinematography: Arthur Edeson, Charles G. Clarke (Uncredited), Sidney Wagner (Uncredited)
1.37:1 Aspect Ratio
Nomination Year: 1936 - 8th Academy Awards Ceremony
Won: Best Picture
Nominations: Best Director - Frank Lloyd; Best Actor - Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone; Best Writing, Screenplay - Jules Furthman, Talbot Jennings, and Carey Wilson; Best Film Editing - Margaret Booth; Best Music, Scoring - Nat W. Finston and Herbert Stothart ("Love Song of Tahiti" written by Walter Jurmann, uncredited)
Writer's note: In this series I will watch a Best Picture-winning film each week and go a little deeper than my usual reviews. I hope you enjoy my thoughts and perspective. I will, of course, attempt to be sensitive to spoilers for newer films but for these early films I will be writing without regard to spoilers so be forewarned. I suggest you see the films I am discussing before reading.
Director Frank Lloyd produced both this film and 1933's Best Picture win, Cavalcade. Prior to seeing the latter I was not familiar with the works of Lloyd, and a review of his filmography illustrates why. The vast majority of his movies are 1) silent pictures, many of them shorts produced as a contract director and 2) many of the post-sound era films are generally unrecognizable. The director often takes a technical and workmanlike approach and as such most of his movies are not standout or notable productions, with only these two films nominated for any awards or merits.
It is also worth noting that Lloyd was president of the Motion Picture Association of America for 1934-1935, just happening to coincide with his film winning Best Picture. I'll not draw any conclusions from this fact, just wanted to point this out.
It is surely the acting talent that sells Mutiny on the Bounty more than anything else, seeing as how Clark Gable starred in at least three of the decade's Best Picture winners. The powerhouse trio also includes Charles Laughton as the brutal Captain Bligh and Franchot Tone as Roger Byam, an officer caught between loyalty to his captain and friendship with Gable's Fletcher Christian.
I do not wish to belabor the following points, but I feel it important to mention here that Cavalcade was a rather dull and stuffy affair. It purported to reflect the march of time, similar to Cimarron, another early Best Picture winner. Like Cimarron, Cavalcade casts its eye towards a family and how the events of the late 19th and early 20th Century shaped them - often focusing on how characters are changed by major events of the time rather than showing those events. Unlike Cimarron, however, Cavalcade is pretty limp, lifeless, and boring. I did have criticisms of Cimarron in that the main character would often ride off to "tame the West" for years at a time, and Cavalcade also has most of its important events occur off-screen. The major difference is that the characters in Cimarron were infinitely more interesting, even if Sabra Cravat's development also occurred mostly off-screen.
Mutiny on the Bounty establishes itself immediately as much more interesting, dynamic, engaging, lively, and enjoyable than Cavalcade. The opening scenes - including Christian rounding up ship-jumpers with a press gang and the crew partying on the deck of the titular ship - do an excellent job of introducing multiple characters and building up tension and excitement to the moment when Bligh comes aboard, which effectively ends the launch party.
The cinematography during the ship launching sequence is stunning, one might even say majestic. Robert Wise must have taken notes when filming the Enterprise porn for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Speaking of Trek, I have a sneaking suspicion that Ryker's character from The Next Generation was based in large part upon Gable's portrayal of Fletcher Cristian. Christian has a charming air about him and easily creates camaraderie with a trio of cadets on a training stint aboard-ship. There is a nice moment when he takes one of the cadets aside. At first we think it will be to chide him for pranking one of the other youthful recruits who has been putting on airs and lording previous experience over them. Christian warmly smiles, puts a hand on the student's shoulder, and says, "Good." I could almost see an exchange like this occurring between Ryker and a fresh ensign.
This film exerts influence over other pop culture tropes as well: A map overlaid with a solid line charting the ship's path of travel is a device that will eventually be utilized famously in the Indiana Jones movies.
There are a number of rather graphic make-up effects which for the day are quite surprising to see. A crewman whipped as punishment for a relatively minor infraction has some unusually gory effects for the time: although shown in a long shot, we can see the wounds seeping blood and ragged strips of skin hanging from the lash marks. Later in the film as the - spoiler - mutiny occurs, a deck hand has one of his palms bayoneted, run through and stuck to a bulkhead. Quite effective and shocking.
Laughton's turn as Bligh has incredible chemistry playing off of Gable's Christian. Bligh is a tyrannical captain, having deck hands whipped, as pointed out earlier, for relatively minor infractions. At one point food stores are reported as being short of two 50-lb cheese wheels. A crewman states they were ordered by Bligh to set the cheese aside before shoving off - apparently amongst Bligh's own personal belongings. Bligh has the crewman tied to a mast for a liar.
The punishments Bligh metes out are brutal and unnecessary, with gruesome results. A single word comes to mind as I witness the iniquities of Bligh's obstinance and gaslighting: Trump.
Filmed on-location in Polynesia and Tahiti, using a host of islanders as extras, Mutiny on the Bounty boasts a number of beautiful shots and stunning oceanic photography. Its strengths do reside in the first two acts where the story is propelled by frequent examples of Bligh's strict rule, as juxtaposed against the tranquility and beauty of the Tahitian locale and its people. The H.M.S. Bounty's purpose is to transplant breadfruit trees to the West Indies so that they have a cheap source of food for natives pressed into service there, thus supporting an exploitative system that will probably eventually also exploit the people of Tahiti as well.
The leader of the native people has a previously established friendship with Bligh and exerts influence over the captain to soften his stance and allow Byam to stay on the island while he creates a dictionary of the Tahitian language. This influence extends to such gestures as allowing Christian shore leave in spite of some disagreements he has had with Bligh, and allowing the men on the island to have a little bit of rest and relaxation in addition to the work of digging and transplanting the trees.
Bligh decides that the best thing to do is to overstuff their storage space with the breadfruit trees and limit the crew's liquid rations in order to have enough water to keep the trees alive for the journey to the Indies. This, along with Bligh's early recall of Christian's shore leave, leads to a further rift with Fletcher and when a young man recruited before the Bounty pushed off is subjected to a keel-haul, Fletcher is left in a position where he has to either stand between the crew members pushed to a mutinous frenzy, or engage in the mutiny as well and limit the damage. He chooses the latter option and sets Bligh and several crew members loyal to him off in a launch with rations enough to last them until they can reach a port of call.
The last act of the film revolves around a court martial in which three crew members, who remained loyal to Bligh but could not leave in the launch, are persecuted rather than commended for staying true to their loyalties. In many ways it is somewhat the inverse of Cavalcade. Where the former film starts out dull and finally gets interesting during the final act, Mutiny starts out excellent and engaging, then does begin to drag a little near the end.
Even with a final act that trails off into dull denouement, Mutiny on the Bounty is all-in-all an excellent example of early filmmaking, with plentiful acting talent on display.
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