We're back with more reviews of the AFI Top 100 after a three month hiatus. Next up is this 1935 naval adventure, starring Charles Laughton, Clark Gable and Franchot Tone, directed by Frank Lloyd. It is "based on real events" of the fateful later 1780s voyage of the British ship Bounty to Tahiti, in which the ship's first mate Fletcher Christian (Gable) leads a revolt against the sadistic, tyrannical Captain Bligh (Laughton).
History has some very different things to say about this mutiny than the film does. Bligh and Christian were not nearly as cut-and-dried characters as the movie portrays (Bligh supposedly was far more lenient than many naval officers of the time, and Christian was supposedly very moody and egocentric), and the reasons for the mutiny itself are also debated.
Despite this, the film is pretty effective at being morally ambiguous. (Indeed, I think "morally ambiguous" is a hallmark of many of the films on this list.) For the first half of the film, you are aghast at Bligh's cruelty along with Christian and the ship's crew, especially when compared against the idyllic life they enjoy for months upon reaching Tahiti. So we sympathize when the revolt finally happens.
But the scenes of Bligh and his loyal crew's 45 day, 3000 mile voyage in a lifeboat without adequate supplies starts to turn our hearts, as does the unenviable position that the mutineers are placed in, as they are eventually tracked down by the British navy and chased to remote Pitcairn Island, doomed to exile. And we start to consider that life on Tahiti would be awfully nice, but it is an indolent existence, gained at what cost?
Nobody really wins in this story, not even the men who pledge loyal to Bligh but are forced to remain with the mutineers, only to be put on trail anyway upon their "rescue." I guess the 1935 moviegoers win, as they were treated to a grand epic not often seen in that time period -- it was filmed on location at Tahiti and upon a life-size replica of the Bounty, over-budget at $2 million, and grand in length at just over two hours. The acting is fine, if pretty standard for the 1930s classic films we've seen.
The last point worth mentioning was the "bonus feature" on the DVD -- a period news reel about "modern day" Pitcairn Island, populated by the inbred descendants of the mutineers. We couldn't watch more than 5 minutes of this due to the extremely creepy Twilight-Zone feeling of it, and it just further cemented the overall "ick" feeling the movie provided.
Good flick, not really recommended, unless you're in to this kind of thing, I guess.
(See this post if you're confused why I'm reviewing movies.)