Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

I'm a sucker for old movies; I think they were just made better back in the day. I'm a sucker for Clark Gable; I think he's a leading man in a way that today's top stars could never be. And I'm a sucker for a compelling villain; done rightly, an antagonist can steal a movie, as Charles Laughton does here.

I always feel a little silly writing positive reviews for movies long considered classics but which I'm only just now getting around to reviewing, and I always feel a lot silly writing up a recap. But a formula is a formula, and far be it from me to break tradition. Mutiny on the Bounty stars Charles Laughton as the sadistic Captain Bligh and Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian, the high-ranking crewman who opposes him. The Bounty is on a trading mission to Tahiti, whose sensual pleasures contrast starkly with the disciplinarian life aboard ship. It's not spoiling anything to say that mutiny ensues.

What always strikes me about old movies is how peppered with personality they are. The actors seem larger than life, and consequently so do their characters. Gable and Laughton loom like monuments over the picture, but in such a way that their presence is not distracting. It's the difference between George Clooney in Burn After Reading and George Clooney in Ocean's 11; in the latter, there's no question that George Clooney is playing himself and resting on his star power, but in the former it becomes apparent just why George Clooney is George Clooney, since he stands out while turning in a solid performance. Though Gable is a far cry from being British - indeed, I should probably be lauding him for not even trying - his Fletcher Christian is compelling nonetheless and makes for an upstanding pillar of morality. Laughton, then, is his perfect opposite number, the Joker to Gable's Batman, the Kantian force of cruelty and order dynamically opposed to the liberty-centric philosophy espoused by both Christian and J.S. Mill. Laughton is slightly hammy in that way that almost all villains of the 1930s were, but it's a plausible kind of hammy in a way that sets a precedent for both the character and the nature of antagonism in general.

At times the contrast between the two is a little overdrawn, again in a way that was common to the 1930s. As such, I can't hold a lack of subtlety against the film, particularly when the film is so good at the moments when it's not being entirely transparent. The acting dynamic between Gable and Laughton is slightly more subtle in a way that the visual language of the film is not; in a way, then, the relationship between the two of them is more palatable (particularly for modern viewers, who love a good bit of nuance) than the visual contrast between the worlds of the Bounty and Tahiti. Though I've not read the book on which the film is based, I imagine this is a matter for which credit belongs to the writers and the actors.

But director Frank Lloyd deserves a fair bit of credit for the film's success. One feature in particular that drew my attention was the film's astounding navigation (no pun intended) of chronology. A two-year voyage occurs overe the span of about an hour, but at no point is the narration confusing or in any way unclear. Deft use of fade-outs and montages make clear the prevailing attitudes aboard the ship in an easy-to-follow manner. The scenes aboard the boat, most filmed from just off-deck, are artful and elegant, making me wonder if Gore Verbinski had a peek at Mutiny on the Bounty before crafting his Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

In short, Mutiny on the Bounty just isn't a movie to rebel against.
Mutiny on the Bounty wasn't rated back in its day, but today it'd probably score a PG "for thematic elements and depictions of flogging."