--- title: "Mutiny on the Bounty" year: 1935 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/mutiny-on-the-bounty" fi1m_score: 83 critics_score: 85 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-19T22:47:16.732999+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T22:47:41.875054+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) Directed by Frank Lloyd · 2h 12m · Adventure, Drama, History **Fi1m score: 83** · Critics 85 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Laughton gets the ship, the law and all the best lines; Gable gets an open shirt and an island > Frank Lloyd’s sea adventure belongs to Charles Laughton, whose Bligh is small, precise and frightening. The Tahiti stretch drifts and Clark Gable is plainly a Hollywood star in a Royal Navy coat, but we recommend it without much hesitation. ## Synopsis Portsmouth, 1787. A press gang empties a tavern to crew HMS Bounty, and Tommy Ellison (Eddie Quillan) is dragged aboard protesting that he has a wife and a baby. The ship is bound for Tahiti to collect breadfruit plants for the West Indies. In command is Captaine Bligh (Charles Laughton), a disciplinarian who has a flogging carried out on a man the surgeon has already pronounced dead. His first mate, Lieutenant Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable), watches and holds his tongue. Midshipman Roger Byam (Franchot Tone), sent by Joseph Banks (Henry Stephenson) to compile a dictionary of the Tahitian language, is seen off by his mother (Spring Byington) and finds himself dining at Bligh’s table and befriending Christian. On the long passage out, Bligh’s punishments and his bookkeeping turn the crew against him, and Christian’s patience starts to go. ## Review Frank Lloyd’s film of the Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall novel is sold as a sea adventure, and it delivers one: sail, storm, a tropical shore. What it is actually about is a man with unchecked power over a wooden box of other men, and what he does with it. Charles Laughton is that man, and he is the reason the film is still worth an evening. Most of the rest is solid, some of it is slack, and none of it is a match for him. The Bounty leaves Portsmouth in 1787 bound for Tahiti and breadfruit. Before she has cleared harbour, Captaine Bligh has a flogging carried out on a man the surgeon has just pronounced dead, and the sentence is completed as written. Laughton plays it without raising his voice. He is small, buttoned to the throat, hat pulled low, hands behind his back, and he addresses the crew as if reading from a ledger. We were appalled, and the film had barely started; it was not the lash that did it but the way Bligh treated a dead man’s flogging as a matter of good order. The punishments that follow all come out of that first scene. Clark Gable, as Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, makes no attempt at an English accent and does not look as though anyone asked him to. He wears the coat open, stands with his weight on one hip and answers Bligh in flat American, and he plays less like a Georgian officer than a shop steward facing the foreman. As history it is nonsense. As opposition it works, because the film needs a contempt the whole crew can see at a glance. Franchot Tone has the harder part as Roger Byam, the midshipman sent by Joseph Banks (Henry Stephenson) to compile a Tahitian dictionary: he dines with Bligh and drinks with Christian, and Tone keeps him decent without making him dull. Dudley Digges is good as Bacchus, the surgeon who keeps his nerve in a bottle, and Eddie Quillan’s Tommy Ellison, taken from a pub with a baby at home, is the face the film cuts to when it wants us to remember who pays. Arthur Edeson shoots the ship from the deck and from the water, low enough that the masts and canvas fill the top of the frame and the men underneath look like cargo. The attempt on the Horn is water over the rail and men clinging to lines, and it convinces. Margaret Booth, who edited and has a screenplay credit as well, cuts the outbound voyage between quarterdeck and lower deck so that a cask of water and a round of cheese carry as much weight as any sword. Herbert Stothart’s score leans on brass and a hymn tune and is loudest when the ship is under sail, which is where it belongs. He has the sense to go quiet when Laughton is talking. Then the ship reaches Tahiti and the film loses its grip for a while. Edeson’s camera goes to the beach and the canoes and stays there. Movita Castaneda and Mamo Clark, as Tehani and Maimiti, are given the job of being beautiful and falling in love with Englishmen, and the script by Jules Furthman, Talbot Jennings and Carey Wilson gives them little else. The romances are done in a few shots each and the film seems relieved to get back aboard. It does get back, and the second half contains the sequence the title promises, staged with speed and real confusion. After it the story splits, the last third moves indoors and slows, and fills with speeches about the Navy. It is the part we would skip on a second viewing. A word for the man the film condemns. The historical William Bligh was, on most readings, a competent and not unusually cruel officer, and Laughton’s portrait has stuck to his name ever since. The film does not care, and it is honest about not caring: the point is a system that puts one man’s temper beyond appeal, and Bligh is the temper. The 1984 retelling with Anthony Hopkins tried to be fair to him, and was less exciting for it. It is 132 minutes and a PG, and it looks its age in the way a good ship does. See it for Laughton, put up with the beach, and notice how often the camera is on the men who have no lines. *Fi1m score 83, published 19 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are unanimous in their approval, and most of them are warm. Charles Laughton’s Captain Bligh is the performance nearly every critic returns to, described as savage, weighty and precise, and at least one thinks it the best work he has done. The scale of the MGM production draws almost as much praise, with reviewers from 1935 onward treating it as Hollywood spectacle done properly. Frank Lloyd’s direction and the screenplay are commended for keeping the story taut and the clash between Bligh and Clark Gable’s Christian at its centre. The spread is narrow. The New Yorker is the coolest voice, finding the film a solid, fine job with inspired moments rather than a triumph, though it still places Laughton’s performance far above everything around it. The later critics read the film differently from the original ones, less as a sea adventure and more as a study of rank, cruelty and empire, but they do not like it any less for that. ### Reviews we read (7) - **Los Angeles Times**, Edwin Schallert (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a great production with high pictorial effect, mood, and quality. He singles out Charles Laughton's relentless portrait of the inflexible Capt. Bligh as his best work. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2022-09-20/from-the-archives-mutiny-on-the-bounty-excellent-drama-of-sea) - **Slant Magazine**, Chris Cabin (90/100, inferred): The 1935 Frank Lloyd film is an unequivocal success and a Swiss clock-type example of screenplay structure, offering high-seas entertainment built on the power of insinuation and the abuses of archaic hierarchy rather than overt adventure or romance. Laughton's precise, humanized Bligh and the battle of wills with Gable's Christian are singled out for praise, along with the lean direction that keeps thematic arguments fresh. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/mutiny-on-the-bounty/) - **The New York Times**, Andre Sennwald (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the lavish, expensive production values and the gripping storytelling of the Bounty saga. He singles out Charles Laughton's monumental, savage performance as Captain Bligh for particular acclaim. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1935/11/17/archives/mutiny-on-the-bounty-secondday-notes-on-captain-bligh-and-his.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (90/100, inferred): The review declares it Hollywood at its very best as a spectacle with superb screen authorship and compelling histrionics. It especially commends the performances of Laughton, Gable, and Tone along with the production values. [Read](https://variety.com/1935/film/reviews/mutiny-on-the-bounty-2-1200411109/) - **Time Out**, ATu (80/100, inferred): This is an exotic and gripping piece of Hollywood mythology, made with technical skill and gloss. Frank Lloyd's direction and the screenplay juxtapose naval adventure with the misery of press-ganged seamen, while highlighting the clash between Bligh and Christian and examining British imperialism. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/mutiny-on-the-bounty) - **The New Yorker**, John C. Mosher (70/100, inferred): The review finds the film a solid, fine job overall with some inspired moments. It especially praises Charles Laughton's vicious, weighty performance as Captain Bligh as a standout masterpiece. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1935/11/16/1935-11-16-099-tny-cards-000013202) - **Collider**, Liam Gaughan (85/100, inferred): The critic calls MGM’s 1935 epic the best screen depiction of the story, praising its incredible scope, intimate direction, thought-provoking ethical dilemmas, strong characterizations, and excellent ensemble performances. [Read](https://collider.com/mutiny-on-the-bounty-oscars/) ## Details - **Director:** Frank Lloyd - **Director:** Frank Lloyd - **Screenplay:** Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman, Carey Wilson, Margaret Booth - **Writer:** John Farrow - **Novel:** James Norman Hall, Charles Nordhoff - **Cinematography:** Arthur Edeson - **Editor:** Margaret Booth - **Music:** Herbert Stothart - **Producer:** Irving Thalberg, Frank Lloyd - **Cast:** Charles Laughton as Captaine Bligh; Clark Gable as Lieutenant Fletcher Christian; Franchot Tone as Roger Byam; Herbert Mundin as Smith; Eddie Quillan as Tommy Ellison; Dudley Digges as Bacchus; Donald Crisp as Thomas Burkitt; Henry Stephenson as Joseph Banks - **Runtime:** 2h 12m - **Release (the US):** 22 November 1935 - **Genres:** Adventure, Drama, History - **Budget:** $2 million - **Box office:** $4 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcYAmV833D0 ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $2.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FR, GB, HR, IE, IT, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PL, RO, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1936: Best Actor (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Score, Adaptation or Treatment (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated); Best Picture (won) ## If you liked this - *Battleship Potemkin* (1925), Fi1m 88: The mutiny film everything else borrows from; it starts with maggots in the meat — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/battleship-potemkin.md) - *The Caine Mutiny* (1954): Bogart’s captain is pitiable rather than monstrous, and the court martial has teeth - *Billy Budd* (1962): Ustinov puts a good man before a bad law aboard a Royal Navy ship - *The Bounty* (1984): The same story told fairly to Bligh; Hopkins is superb and the film is duller - *Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World* (2003), Fi1m 86: The period Navy with the ropes, the food and the weather right, and less speechifying — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/master-and-commander-the-far-side-of-the-world.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/mutiny-on-the-bounty