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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Talbot Jennings (screenplay) &
Jules Furthman (screenplay) ...
more
Release Date:
1936 (Germany) more
Tagline:
A Thousand Hours of Hell For One Moment of Love! more
Plot:
Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on avenging his captors. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
Won Oscar. Another 1 win & 7 nominations more
NewsDesk:
"Mutiny On The Bounty" At The Redford Theatre, Detroit, This Weekend
(From CinemaRetro. 28 May 2009, 6:13 PM, PDT)
User Comments:
The Grandest Sea Saga of Them All more (67 total)
Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Charles Laughton | ... | Bligh | |
| Clark Gable | ... | Christian | |
| Franchot Tone | ... | Byam | |
| Herbert Mundin | ... | Smith | |
| Eddie Quillan | ... | Ellison | |
| Dudley Digges | ... | Bacchus | |
| Donald Crisp | ... | Burkitt | |
| Henry Stephenson | ... | Sir Joseph Banks | |
| Francis Lister | ... | Captain Nelson | |
| Spring Byington | ... | Mrs. Byam | |
| Movita | ... | Tehani | |
| Mamo Clark | ... | Maimiti (as Mamo) | |
| Byron Russell | ... | Quintal | |
| Percy Waram | ... | Coleman | |
| David Torrence | ... | Lord Hood |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
132 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Sound System)
Certification:
Canada:PG (video rating) | South Korea:12 (2003) | New Zealand:G | USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | Sweden:11 (DVD rating) | Argentina:13 | Australia:G | Germany:12 | USA:Approved (PCA #1531) | UK:PG (video rating) (2002) | Netherlands:12 | UK:A (original rating)
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
2nd unit assistant cameraman Glenn Strong died when a barge with 55 crewmen and staff members capsized while shooting exterior scenes. more
Goofs:
Anachronisms: When the Bounty leave port, you see another sailing ship. This is a steel hull tall ship that came into fashion about 100 years after this film takes place. more
Quotes:
[Byam enters the courtroom and sees that the midshipman's dirk on the table points toward him; he knows that he has been condemned to death]
Lord Hood:
Have you anything to say before the sentence of this court is passed upon you?
[long pause]
Byam:
Milord, much as I desire to live, I'm not afraid to die. Since I first sailed on the Bounty over four years ago, I've know how men can be made to suffer worse things than death, cruelly, beyond duty, beyond necessity.
[turns to Captain Bligh]
Byam:
Captain Bligh, you've told your story of mutiny on the Bounty, how men plotted against you, seized your ship, cast you adrift in an open boat, a great venture in science brought to nothing, two British ships lost. But there's another story, Captain Bligh, of ten cocoanuts and two cheeses. A story of a man who robbed his seamen, cursed them, flogged them, not to punish but to break their spirit. A story of greed and tyranny, and of anger against it, of what it cost.
[turns to Lord Hood]
Byam:
One man, milord, would not endure such tyranny.
[turns again to Captain Bligh]
Byam:
That's why you hounded him. That's why you hate him, hate his friends. And that's why you're beaten. Fletcher Christian's still free.
[...]
more
Soundtrack:
Rule Britannia more
FAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (67 total)
Message Boards
Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
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| The Ending... | Superbradman |
| Pitcairn | ricmilstokes |
| Movie is untrue | chitoryu12 |
| Help! | Lockwood04 |
| the mst historiacilly inaccurate film ever. | pheapes-1 |
Recommendations
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| Mutiny on the Bounty | The Bounty | The Blue Lagoon | Danger Island | Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest |
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At that most prestigious of all film studios, MGM, they produced the greatest and grandest sea saga of them all. In 1935 it was considered quite daring to have an over two hour film. But Mutiny on the Bounty holds your interest through out.
All three leads Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, and Franchot Tone were nominated for Best Actor that year and they managed to cancel each other out. Victor McLaglen took home the statue for The Informer with the fifth nominee being Paul Muni for Black Fury.
Clark Gable wisely did not attempt a British accent and yet there was no criticism of his performance as Fletcher Christian. Christian was first mate of the HMS Bounty and a man of conscience. It tears him up inside to see the sadism and cruelty of Captain Bligh on this voyage. The men aren't king and country volunteers as he tells the captain. But the captain has his own ideas.
Normally Charles Laughton played a whole lot of twisted and/or tortured souls for the screen. His Captain Bligh is a man with a deep inferiority complex. The key to him is in the dinner scene on board the Bounty. Watching him, you can see the envy and jealousy he has of the confident and self assured Gable, the callow youth Franchot Tone brimming with idealism and even the surgeon Dudley Digges who despite his drunkeness and crudity is a professional man with some education. It's so much like James Cagney's captain in Mister Roberts and worse because at that time the British Navy gave him the authority of God on that ship.
The conflict between Gable and Laughton is obviously the main plot of the film. Yet there is a subplot that's rarely talked about, the conflict between Gable and Franchot Tone. Tone who was also American, but was stage trained and could fit into a British setting easily, plays Roger Byam one of the young midshipmen on board and who Gable befriends. The key to his character is right at the beginning of the film when he's being sent off to sea by Henry Stephenson playing Sir Joseph Banks. Seven generations of Byam's family have been part of the glorious naval tradition of Great Britain and none have failed in their duty. That should be uppermost in your mind.
Gable and Tone have different ideas of duty and it tests their friendship. Each chooses a different path, yet Tone ends up defending Gable against Laughton. Franchot Tone's finest screen moment for me has always been at his court martial where he makes a stirring speech in defense of the rights of the ordinary British seaman.
As always though the mark of a really great film is the impact those small character roles leave. The men on the Bounty include Donald Crisp, Stanley Fields, Eddie Quillan, Herbert Mundin. My favorite though is Dudley Digges as the ship's surgeon Mr. Bacchus. At the drop of a shilling he'll tell you how he's lost his leg. Outrageous, humorous, and a kindly man who softens the blows of Laughton's harsh discipline, had there been the Supporting player categories then, Mr. Digges would have been my choice for 1935 as Best Supporting Actor.
Even in black and white, made in the studio back lot, Mutiny on the Bounty still holds up well today. Despite two subsequent versions of the story, this version has stood the test of time.