Mutiny on the Bounty

Before I start talking about this movie, let me make a note of something I noticed watching the theatrical trailers for CFTBL. They show just about all the important scenes from the movie in the previews. What the creature looks like, men fighting the creature, creature sneaking up on people, creature carrying the girl out of the lagoon (rather famous scene, by the way). They gave the audience just about everything beforehand. I hate knowing what's going to happen before seeing the movie, and I'm glad they don't do it like that anymore. Anyway.

Mutiny on the Bounty is #86 on the AFI list, and comes to us from 1935, the same year that brought us...umm...brought us such films as...hmm...nothing I've ever heard of, at least not in their 1935 iterations. Alice Adams, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and Naughty Marietta are some. Actors you'll recognize: Clark Gable. Actors you've seen but may not recognize: Charles Loughton, of whom I am quite fond because of his role in Witness for the Prosecution, a really excellent movie from 1957. I have increased fondness for WFTP since I also saw it as a play at Lazy Susan's Dinner Theater over spring break when I was a high school sophomore. I sat at the table with someone of whom I was very fond, so that probably influences my feelings on the film. Bact to MOTB.

Laughton plays the role of the tyrannical Captain Bligh, who runs his ship with not just tight discipline, but with brutal, punishing discipline. The beginning of the movie sees him ordering the flogging of a prisoner who is already dead. One man gets keel-hauled for falling into the water from his post up high and dies as a result. His cruelty causes grumbling and protest among the sailors, which only results in more punishment. Clark Gable, four years earlier than Gone With the Wind, plays Fletcher Christian, the man in charge of enforcing Bligh's orders. He chafes at the captain's harshness towards the men, and eventually leads the mutiny against him. Somewhere in the middle is Midshipman Roger Byam, who comes from a family with deep roots in the British navy. He is torn between his duty as a sailor to Bligh and his friendship as a man with Christian. He gives a wonderful speech at the end denouncing Bligh's cruelty and calling for a new covenant between officers and sailors.

I think the movie runs a little long, and it's hard for me to care about any of the characters other than Bligh or Christian. Even Byam doesn't matter much to me till the end, and the rest of the characters are sort of background to me. Interesting movie at times, but there's no way I'd rank it ahead of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, which is 13 spots lower on the AFI list.