In 1787, British ship Bounty leaves Portsmouth to bring a cargo of bread-fruit from Tahiti but the savage on-board conditions imposed by Captain Bligh trigger a mutiny led by officer Fletche... Read allIn 1787, British ship Bounty leaves Portsmouth to bring a cargo of bread-fruit from Tahiti but the savage on-board conditions imposed by Captain Bligh trigger a mutiny led by officer Fletcher Christian.In 1787, British ship Bounty leaves Portsmouth to bring a cargo of bread-fruit from Tahiti but the savage on-board conditions imposed by Captain Bligh trigger a mutiny led by officer Fletcher Christian.
- Nominated for 7 Oscars
- 3 wins & 13 nominations total
- Directors
- Lewis Milestone
- Carol Reed(fired) (uncredited)
- George Seaton(Christian's death scene) (uncredited)
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe ship built for the film sank in the Atlantic Ocean after taking on water on October 29, 2012 during Hurricane Sandy off of the East Coast of the United States. It was last seen with only the masts standing above the water. Two of the crew died: the Captain, Robin Walbridge, and Claudene Christian, the direct descendant of Fletcher Christian.
- GoofsThe burning of the Bounty at Pitcairn's Island wasn't the result of one man deciding to destroy it. It was the general consensus of most of the mutineers that the ship be burned because there was no way to conceal it, and they didn't want passing ships to be able to identify their island. It was certainly not done without Christian's knowledge (it was actually his idea).
- Quotes
Fletcher Christian: [to Captain Bligh] You remarkable pig. You can thank whatever pig god you pray to that you haven't turned me into a murderer.
- Alternate versionsThe original 1962 print had a different opening scene, in which a ship's crew lands on Pitcairn and discovers an artifact belonging to the H.M.S. Bounty. They can barely read the name until William Brown (Richard Haydn), now aged, appears on the beach and says "Bounty". He then proceeds to tell the story of the famous mutiny, of which he is apparently the last surviving member. That is why we hear his voice narrating the story. In all current prints, including the one shown on Turner Classic Movies ca. 2005, this opening scene is omitted, so we do not know why Brown is telling the story in voiceover. However, the scene has been restored on the 2006 DVD release.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Hollywood: The Fabulous Era (1962)
The late 18th century is often described as the Age of Revolution, and as the Bounty mutiny took place in 1787, midway between the American and French Revolutions, there would have been an obvious temptation to play Bligh as a decadent aristocrat and Fletcher Christian, the leader of the rebels, as a man of the people, standing up for the Rights of the Common Man. The temptation to portray Christian as a proto-Jacobin is, however, firmly resisted. In this film, it is Christian who is the aristocrat and Bligh, ever insecure about his social status, who is from a humbler background.
This is sometimes regarded as the film which started the decline in Brando's reputation. In his previous film, One Eyed Jacks, which he had also directed, he had gained a reputation as an obsessive perfectionist, but, artistically, the result was a very fine film with an excellent performance from Brando himself. In Mutiny on the Bounty, however, Brando proved to be equally obsessive, but the resulting film is not quite in the same class. Moreover, Brando's performance is one of his weaker ones. Much of the criticism (on this side of the Atlantic, at least) has centred upon his British accent. In terms of phonetic sound-values, in fact, Brando's effort is quite a reasonable attempt at an upper-class drawl- the real Fletcher Christian, the son of a Cumberland farmer, would probably have spoken with a strong northern accent- but it always sounds strained and unnatural. This sort of linguistic accuracy is probably unnecessary in period dramas, anyway. We do not know exactly how people spoke in the 18th century, but the available evidence suggests that the difference between British and American accents was much less marked than it is today. I was struck by the contrast with another big American star playing a British naval officer, Gregory Peck in Captain Horatio Hornblower. Although Peck's accent still sounds American, it also sounds more natural and is less distracting to the viewer.
The main problem, however, is not Brando's accent, but rather the way in which his character is played. Christian is played not only as an aristocrat, but also as a languid, foppish dandy. Bligh accuses him of hating both effort and ambition, and there appears to be some justice in the accusation. For too long Christian remains a passive, emotionless character, so the clash of temperaments between him and Bligh remains a muted one. Only during the mutiny itself does he come alive. The idea was presumably to show that Bligh was such a tyrant that even a passionless fop could be roused to anger by his behaviour, but this conception seems to me to waste much of the dramatic potential inherent in the story.
Brando apart, however, I found this a reasonably good film. Trevor Howard's portrayal of Bligh as a tyrannical martinet may have been historically inaccurate, but it was certainly convincing. (Even so, I still think that the best of the three actors to play the part was Anthony Hopkins in the 1984 version, which portrayed Bligh in a less one-dimensional way. Clark Gable remains the best Christian). The film is attractively shot, especially the Tahitian scenes, and Lewis Milestone handles the direction in such a way as to ensure that the story does not drag, as it easily could have done in a film of this length. (The film takes three hours to tell a story that the 1935 and 1984 versions told in just over two). Although it is not quite as good as the 1935 version, it is still a very watchable epic of the sea. 7/10
- JamesHitchcock
- Feb 11, 2005
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Meuterei auf der Bounty
- Filming locations
- Bora Bora, Leeward Islands, French Polynesia(first breadfruit collecting party)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $19,000,000 (estimated)
- Runtime2 hours 58 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 2.76 : 1