Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Written by Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman, & Carey Wilson

Directed by Frank Lloyd

The HMS Bounty

Mutiny on the Bounty was a film I’d heard of for a long time, but never had an opportunity to watch, until now. I generally don’t like seafaring movies (I’m painfully reminded of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which is just...awful), so while I was intrigued by this depiction of a true story, I didn’t have high hopes for the outcome. Add to that that this film is directed by Frank Lloyd, who also directed the (in my opinion) dismal Cavalcade, and I settled in wearily for this viewing.

I come away from it partially assuaged, and partially vindicated. There are some great moments and sequences, and there are some dreadfully dull ones, as well. There’s some really excellent character work from the leading actors, but the plot begins to feel wearisome as it goes on.

Gable’s Christian faces off against Laughton’s Bligh

This is the second film in this marathon to feature Clark Gable, and, like in It Happened One Night, he shines here as the semi-reluctant leader of the mutiny. His animosity with Charles Laughton’s Capitan Bligh is never really fully explained, but it does give the voyage an ominous outlook, even before it sets sail.

The launching of the voyage is a spectacular sequence, one that takes its time to introduce its viewer to the people, their relationships to one another, and the locations around the ship that the story will take place in. A good chunk of time is spent on this sequence, and it’s to the film’s benefit. It’s all exposition, to be sure, but it doesn’t feel like it, which is truly remarkable.

The titular mutiny in progress

Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn’t quite keep that up. At just over two hours, the film shouldn’t feel as long as it does. The titular mutiny doesn’t happen until well past the hour-mark of the film. A lot of this is because the film takes a long time to set up the villainous Captain Bligh, but it drives that point into the ground. It’s as if the film wants the audience to not doubt, for a single second, that the mutiny is the right thing for the crew to do, but Laughton’s masterful performance sells that so early, that the middle of the film seems to just keep saying the same thing, over and over.

A not-so-accurate Tahitian paradise

The whole point of the voyage is for the crew to travel to Tahiti to collect some breadfruit plants, of which they take A LOT. They essentially strip the place of these plants, but the film is still stuck in the 1930’s, so the English invaders are treated like Guests and given royal welcomes. Filmmaking hasn’t quite reached the point of, white men arriving on your coast in large ships is NOT a good thing (in reality, the mutineers returned to Tahiti and promptly enslaved the Tahitian men).

From an Awards standpoint, the film is notable for two reasons: first, it is (currently) the last of three films (following The Broadway Melody and Grand Hotel) to win Best Picture without winning any of the other awards it was nominated for. Secondly, due to the film receiving three Best Actor nominations, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor was created the following year.

Overall, the film isn’t overly terrible, just overly long. A good trimming of 20-30 minutes could have made this film exhilarating, but instead, after an excellent beginning, it tapers off into merely tolerable, telling a great (if wildly inaccurate) story, with a great set of characters, while taking too long to do so.

FINAL GRADE: C+