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Laughton and Gable go head to head in Mutiny on the Bounty |
Director: Frank Lloyd
Cast: Charles Laughton (Captain Bligh), Clark Gable (Lt
Fletcher Christian), Franchot Tone (Roger 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 Castaneda (Tehani), Mamo Clark (Maimiti), Byron Russell
(Quintal), David Torrance (Lord Hood)
“They respect but one law – the law of fear…”. So hisses
Charles Laughton as the definitively monsterish Captain Bligh in this
Oscar-winning version of the most famous mutiny ever. It’s the quintessential
adventure on the high-seas motion picture (never mind that the actual ship used
could only get a few miles off the coast), but it’s also a feast of good acting
and Hollywood class: the only picture to get three nominations for Best Actor,
as well as the last Best Picture winner to only win one Oscar. It cemented the
ideas around Bligh and Fletcher for generations.
Heading out on a two-year voyage in 1787 to transport
breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies, the Bounty sets sail from Portsmouth with several members of the crew
freshly pressganged. In command is self-made man Captain William Bligh (Charles
Laughton), while his second-in-command is gentleman Fletcher Christian (Clark
Gable). A pair of fine sailors, the two of them are separated only by their
methods. Fletcher is a man of the people, a motivator with a firm hand. Bligh
is a man with just a firm hand, who never uses a dozen lashes of the crew when
two dozen will do. Fletcher becomes more and more alienated by Bligh’s ruthless
methods.
Frank Lloyd bought the rights to a novel that fictionalised
the mutiny (introducing Roger Byam, a fictional version of Peter Heywood who
later become a Post-Captain in the navy) with the intention of directing and
playing Bligh himself. Fortunately he was persuaded to step aside on the acting
front for Laughton, who is seized the part with relish. Shoulders scrunched and neck jutting his head
forward, with his lip curled, this is a Bligh constantly on the look-out for
offence, a martinet whose anger stems from a self-loathing within. A chippy
middle-class boy made good, he’s determined to enforce the letter of the law,
and while a bully with no empathy he’s not exactly a bad man, just a bad
captain. Laughton’s performance simmers with bitterness and a relish for being obeyed.
He makes a neat contrast with Clark Gable at his matinee
idol finest. Worried about taking the role because it demanded the shaving of
his lucky moustache (no facial hair in the navy), Gable gifts Laughton the
flashier role to play the decent hero with only the best for his fellow man at
heart. Gable’s Christian is decent, understanding, a natural leader who has a
firm eye for justice. Not even bothering with the British accent, but settling
for a mid-Atlantic ease, Gable is the Hollywood superstar to his core, his
Christian the quintessential romantic ideal.
Between the two of them runs Franchot Tone’s Midshipman
Roger Byam. Tone is the often forgotten third nominee for Best Actor, but he
has in many ways the trickier part, which he handles with aplomb: the naïve
young man who wants to serve his captain and his country, but also understands
that his captain is not a man of justice. Tone gets the film’s highlight, a
final speech to the court martial that helps make everything turn out alright,
but his tortured pleading for justice and moral righteousness is delivered with
a humble and effective forthrightness.
Lloyd has these fine performances (plus some great work from
Mundin, Crisp, Digges, Quillan and others as assorted ship’s crew) and sets
them all out perfectly on a film that captures the heart of the epic. The ship
is brilliantly constructed and assembled, and Lloyd’s film reconstructs
everything from day-to-day travails on sea to the impact of storms. The mutiny
when it comes is shot with an Eisensteinesque immediacy, while he also manages
to shoot Tahiti with a dreamlike paradise sheen. He paces perfectly the growing
sense of tension and unresolvable fury between Bligh and Christian.
And he certainly gets a brilliant sense of the cruelty and
sustained violence of Bligh’s rule on the boat, as floggings come thundering
down on the backs the sailors – often for the very meanest of reasons. A
keelhauling (despite one moment of laughably bad model work) is brutal in its
harshness. Bligh’s first act on boat is to flog a dead man (after all death
doesn’t wipe out the need for punishment) and he goes from there. The film does
give time to admire Bligh’s seamanship – and reconstructs surprisingly well his
awe-inspiring open boat trip over 4,000 miles to take him and loyalists back to
a safe port. Meanwhile Christian heads for the safety of Tahiti, a blissful
series of images of our decent sailors enjoying homespun pleasures and hot
Tahitian wives.
Of course it’s not actually what happened really. Bligh was
a difficult, priggish and rather cold person with low personal skills but he
wasn’t the monster he seems here. Christian had a certain aristocratic pull
over the men, but he was also probably far more twitchy, young and stupid than
the assured, experienced sailor he is here. Bligh’s ship wasn’t the bastion of
cruelty it is here (punishments seemed in line with the rest of the navy, or
even a little less according to the log), but Bligh’s lack of understanding of
how men work and his endless drive, matched with his sailors’ seduction by the
charms of an easy life on Tahiti perhaps led to the outbreak. Either way Bligh
definitely didn’t command the HMS Pandora
to hunt the sailors down, nor did the investigation into the matter end with
him being snubbed as a wrong ‘un by Lord Hood.
But hey, if you know that this is legend printed as fact
it’s fine. Because Lloyd’s film is still superbly entertaining, has three
excellent performances among a fine ensemble cast and while its version of
Bligh may be a monster made up, Laughton invests him with enough humanity and
self-loathing you’ll despair at his poor choices as much as you’ll hate his
cruelty. Prime Hollywood entertainment, perfect for any time.
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