Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1935 American historical adventure drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.ED STOCKLY.Movies on TV this week: March 15: ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ on Freeform; Raiders of the Lost Ark and more. Los Angeles Times. It dramatizes the mutiny of HMS Bounty, and is adapted from the novels Mutiny on the Bounty and Men Against the Sea by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. It stars Charles Laughton as William Bligh, Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian, and Franchot Tone as Roger Byam (based on Peter Heywood).
Despite historical inaccuracies, the film was a huge box office success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1935 and one of MGM's biggest hits of the 1930s. The film was also a major critical success, and received a leading eight nominations at the 8th Academy Awards, winning Best Picture. As of 2026, it is the last Best Picture winner to win in no other category.
Plot
In 1787, William Bligh commands the Royal Naval merchant vessel HMS Bounty. Bligh is a brutal tyrant who routinely administers harsh punishment to officers and crew alike who lack discipline, cause any infraction on board the ship, or defy his authority in any manner. After press ganging a crew out of a local pub, the Bounty sets sail from Portsmouth on a two-year voyage across the Pacific, to transport breadfruit from the Polynesian islands to Jamaica.
Fletcher Christian, the ship's executive officer, is a formidable yet compassionate man who disapproves of Bligh's treatment of the crew. Roger Byam is an idealistic midshipman who is divided between his loyalty to Bligh, owing to his family's naval tradition, and his friendship with Christian.
During the voyage, the enmity between Christian and Bligh grows after Christian openly challenges Bligh's unjust practices aboard the ship. When the ship arrives at the island of Tahiti, where the crew acquires breadfruit plants to take to the West Indies, Bligh punishes Christian by refusing to let him leave the ship during their stay.
Byam, meanwhile, sets up residency on the island and lives with the island chief, Hitihiti, and his daughter, Tehani, and he compiles an English dictionary of the Tahitian language. Hitihiti persuades Bligh to allow Christian a day pass on the island. Bligh agrees, but quickly repeals the pass out of spite. Christian disregards the order and spends his day off the ship romancing a Tahitian girl, Maimiti. Christian promises her he will be back someday.
After leaving Tahiti, the crew begins to talk of mutiny after Bligh's harsh discipline leads to the death of the ship's beloved surgeon, Mr. Bacchus, and Bligh severely cuts water rationing to the crew in favor of providing more water for the breadfruit plants.
Christian, although initially opposing the idea, decides he can no longer tolerate Bligh's brutality when he witnesses crew members shackled in iron chains, and he approves the mutiny. The crew raids the weapons cabinet and seizes the ship. Bligh and his loyalists are cast into a boat and set adrift at sea with a map and rations to ensure their survival. Due to Bligh's steady leadership, they are able to find their way back to land.
Meanwhile, Christian orders that Bounty return to Tahiti. Byam, who was in his cabin during the mutiny, disapproves of what Christian has done and decides the two can no longer be friends.
Months later, Byam is married to Tehani, and Christian has married Maimiti and has a child with her, while the rest of the crew are enjoying their freedom on the island. After a long estrangement, Byam and Christian reconcile their friendship. However, when the British ship HMS Pandora is spotted approaching, Byam and Christian decide they must part ways. Byam and several crew members remain on the island for the ship to take them back to England, while Christian leads the remaining crew, his wife, and several Tahitian men and women back on board Bounty in search of a new island on which to seek refuge.
Byam boards Pandora and, much to his surprise, discovers that Bligh is the captain. Bligh, who suspects that Byam was complicit in the mutiny, has him imprisoned for the remainder of the journey across the sea.
Back in England, Byam is court-martialed and found guilty of mutiny. Before the court condemns him, Byam speaks of Bligh's cruel, dehumanizing conduct aboard Bounty. Due to the intervention of his friend Sir Joseph Banks and Lord Hood, Byam is pardoned by King George III and allowed to resume his naval career at sea.
Meanwhile, Christian has found Pitcairn Island, an uninhabited yet sustainable island that he believes will provide adequate refuge from the reach of the Royal Navy. After deliberately crashing Bounty onto the rocks, Christian orders her to be burned to evade detection, planning to settle permanently there.
Cast
Production The film is based on Mutiny on the Bounty and Men Against the Sea, the first two novels of The Bounty Trilogy written by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Director Frank Lloyd purchased the rights to the novel and offered to sell the project to MGM chief Irving Thalberg, on the condition that he be allowed to direct and star, and that the film be shot on-location in Tahiti. Thalberg agreed to let Lloyd direct, but rejected his other demands.
Frank Lloyd and Thalberg undertook extensive research of 18th century British naval customs and archival records pertaining to the actual mutiny, in a bid for his historical authenticity. Lloyd consulted genealogical charts in order to contact and interview living descendants of the original Bounty crew, transcripts of the courts-martial, and also read William Bligh's own memoir A Narrative of the Mutiny on His Majesty's Ship "Bounty".
John Farrow, Robert Hopkins, and Allen Rivkin were uncredited screenwriters on the film.
Casting
The film was originally conceived as a starring vehicle for Wallace Beery (as Bligh) and Robert Montgomery (as Byam), but both were replaced before production began.
Clark Gable was initially opposed to playing Christian, since it meant shaving his trademark mustache.
Charles Laughton, who had a severe self-image complex concerning his weight and unattractive looks, suffered horribly in comparing himself to the handsome, masculine Clark Gable. Laughton would constantly watch his own walk, gestures, and face, making sure not to let his complex be projected.
During pre-production, Laughton discovered that Bligh's tailoring establishment still possessed one of Bligh's original transaction records, which contained the price as well as the measurements and type of material of his uniforms. At Laughton's request, the tailor used the records to reproduce Bligh's uniforms.
Filming locations Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios – 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, United States (studio) Monterey Bay, Monterey, California, United States Monterey Harbor, Monterey, California, United States Sailing Ship Restaurant, Pier 42, The Embarcadero, San Francisco, California, United States (ship Ellen as the Bounty) San Miguel Island, California, United States Santa Barbara Channel, Channel Islands, California, United States Santa Catalina Island, Channel Islands, California, United States South Beach Harbor, South Beach, San Francisco, California, United States (ship Ellen as the Bounty) South Pacific, Pacific Ocean Tahiti, French Polynesia
James Cagney (then on a hiatus from Warner Bros. during a contract dispute) and future stars David Niven and Dick Haymes were uncredited extras in the movie. Cagney is clearly visible toward the beginning of the film. He was sailing his boat near where the film was shooting near Catalina Island; director Frank Lloyd was an old friend of his, and Cagney asked him if he could play a small part in the film, saying, jokingly, "I need the money". Lloyd had Cagney dressed in a crewman's clothes and put him in the background of a few scenes.
Second unit camera operator Glenn Strong was killed after a barge the crew was using capsized off San Miguel Island.
Ships The ship that starred as the Bounty was built in 1882 as the Lily, by the Dickie Brothers in San Francisco. She was used for filming starting 1920, when an unknown film production was given permission to burn her decks while moored in San Francisco. In July of 1920, the Lily was towed into Newport Harbor, and was cited as the largest ship to have entered the harbor. MGM would purchase the Lily in May of 1927, and she was used in the films The Single Standard (1929), and The Ship from Shanghai (1930). She was sold in 1932 and worked as a salvage vessel. By June of 1934, MGM owned her and conversion to appear as the Bounty was underway.
By 1937 the replica Bounty and Pandora were moored together at the entrance to the Port of Long Beach. By 1939, they were in disrepair. By 1941, they had been moved to a location deeper into the harbor. In 1946, MGM sold the Bounty to F.W. Eaton, who restored the schooner rigging, and anchored her off of Cabrillo Beach, Los Angeles. The August 13, 1950 edition of the Long Beach Press-Telegram reports that sometime after conversion to a fishing barge, the ship had dragged its anchor during a storm, battered herself against the breakwater, and sank.
The Nanuk (replica Pandora) was sold sometime between 1941 and 1946 to the Pacific National Shipping Company of Mexico, where her masts were removed, and Lloyds would lister her working as an oil-powered motor freighter. She would disappear from the Lloyd's register in 1960.
Historical accuracy The film's screenplay is based largely on the Nordhoff-Hall novels, and contains several historical inaccuracies:
Captain Bligh was never on board , nor was he present at the trial of the mutineers who stayed on Tahiti. At the time, he was halfway around the world on a second voyage for breadfruit plants. Fletcher Christian's father had died many years before Christian's travels on board Bounty, whereas the film shows the elder Christian at the trial. Bligh is initially depicted as a brutal, sadistic disciplinarian, only becoming more sympathetic during the voyage to Timor. Particular episodes include a keelhauling and flogging a dead man. Neither of these happened. Keelhauling was used rarely, if at all, and had been abandoned long before Bligh's time. Indeed, the meticulous record of Bountys log reveals that the flogging rate was lower than the average for that time. Prior to the mutiny, Bounty had only two deaths. One seaman, James Valentine, died of an ill-defined respiratory illness; logs indicate he was "seized with a violent hollow Cough and spit much." The ship's surgeon, Thomas Huggan, apparently died of complications due to his chronic alcoholism, not as a result of abuse by Bligh. In fact, Bligh had threatened to seize and impound Huggan's alcohol stocks on account of him regularly being intoxicated while on duty, a threat Bligh eventually carried out. Huggan's constant drunkenness left Bligh little choice but to oversee key health issues himself. Notably, the crew had been examined constantly for scurvy, and Bligh – his expertise in this matter developed under Captain James Cook – had detected no verified signs of the illness at any time. Likewise, the film shows the mutineers taking over the ship only after killing several loyal crewmen, when in fact none died (although one crewman came very close to shooting Bligh until stopped by Christian). Christian is shown being inspired to take over the ship after several crewmen have unjustly been put into irons by Bligh; this is fictional. Mutineer Thomas Ellison is depicted as being allowed to see his wife before his execution. There is no record to indicate that the real Ellison was married, and in any case, a consolation visit of this type never would have been permitted in real life.