Somewhere I read that the monarch/aristocrat with democratic values was a peculiarly American invention, that is an invention of Hollywood, and that thought was running through my mind when I watched this movie last night at the Virginia Theater in downtown Champaign. Though I wish I could remember who said it, and about what.

However, Mutiny on the Bounty, at least this version (1935, the second of at least five movies), gives you a fairly good example of that American penchant for transforming the aristocracy into heroes. Bligh is admittedly a self-made man, but the subtext is that he’s made that money by stealing from the ship’s stores (and therefore starving his men) and stealing directly from the men, for whatever gifts the natives give them at ports of call are handed over to the crown and indirectly into Bligh’s pocket. On the other hand, his lieutenant Fletcher Christian is a gentleman, in both senses of the word, the son of the aristocracy, and full of noble ideas of how kindness and love of country can make even the most harden criminal (for, of course, one of the ways the British navy made up its numbers by recruiting from jails) into a proper seaman. In contrast, Bligh relies on fear and the cat.

But perhaps the best contrast for Christian is the midshipman, Roger Byam (and I’ll try not to point out he’s at least five years too old for that position, traditionally reserved, if the Patrick O’Brian novels are anything to go on, for 10-15 year-olds). Initially, he and Christian are in the same position; they have the same ideals, on the treatment of men, on the inherent nobility of life on the sea, and perhaps the same background, and they become fast friends. But when the mutiny comes about they find themselves on opposite sides, Byam (the archetype optimistic, bright, upright, young British gentleman) stages a counter attack, which is easily overcome, but when he’s picked up by Bligh, in his vengeful return to the scene in a fresh ship, the Pandora, it’s he, and a handful of men, some loyal and some mutineers, who are taken back to England and tried for mutiny.

There are many great performances, there are cruel men and kind men, and average men driven to extremes, and an island paradise full of beautiful adorable women. As a movie, though, it’s sort of disjointed. The first half is the voyage to Tahiti, a few months docked there, and then the ship heads towards the West Indies, and each scene shows another example of Bligh’s bad treatment of his crew and how Christian is standing up under it, obeying disagreeable orders, and they are punctuated interludes where the journey being traced on a map; the usual convention. Then after the mutiny, we fall into part two, where Bligh pilots his little boat some inconceivable distance in 39 days with only enough food for ten days. As soon as land is sighted, we drop Captain Bligh, and the movie returns to Tahiti, where it’s again the island paradise, and when the Pandora is sighted, and men escape with Christian on the Bounty or stay and are captured by Captain Bligh, it becomes something of a pursuit movie (although it’s impossible, really, to find any particular ship in the wide ocean in the 18th century). There is so much information the movie needs to present us with that this section is punctuated with two screens of text, the sort modern audiences used to coming at the end of the movie, usually explaining what happened to characters later or what resulted from the events in the movie. But the movie does not end and we go back to England for the trial. Though there is some value in these last bits, the stirring speech by Byam comes to mind, the fact that this crime will haunt perpetrators and victims for the rest of their lives, I believe that it might have been better if it wound up a little sooner. At 2 hours and 10 minutes, or so, it’s not particularly long, but it seemed a little overfull, a bit end-heavy.

Although this is a historical drama, it isn’t a completely accurate one. Captain Bligh, now known through history as the cruelest of men, was, though sarcastic and strict, never so black as they paint him here (although Charles Laughton easily walks away with the movie, turning in a fascinating study of vileness and competence). And Fletcher Christian, though who knows, he may have been as charismatic and handsome as Clark Gable, really mutinied because he had been forced to abandon his pregnant Tahitian wife. It has been suggested that the version of this story lies the closest to what is understood about the case is the 1984 Anthony Hopkins/Mel Gibson picture The Bounty. I think the plot of this 1935 picture, because it seems to stick to the physical facts of where men where at particular times, manages to still hint at what really happened. For instance, lthough Christian shows many times his distaste for serving under so harsh a master, his first deliberate disobedience comes when he meets his future wife on the beach of Tahiti. And the characterization of Bligh isn’t particularly consistent. As heartless as he appears, in the first half, at the height of his authority, there are moments when it’s clear that even he knows he’s gone too far. When he’s set adrift with some food, some water, and perhaps a dozen men, he divides rations equally, he gives the sick men first of the food, he tries to keep the men’s spirits up. Perhaps these are ripples of reality invading an adventure story, or perhaps, I’m reading too much into it.

Admittedly, I love the sea, or more in fact, I love reading about the sea and seeing movies about the sea. I like the idea of the tenuousness of life and the perverse freedom, where you must depend on your fellow men because they’re the only thing that keeps this fragile, precarious craft afloat, and as soon as order breaks down, there is no longer any illusion of safety. And mutiny is the worst fate of any ship, because, arguably, it’s the most preventable. It’s a compelling story, no matter what the truth in it is, presented thoughtfully with some humor and some horror, and something approximating a happy ending, and what more can you ask for? I walked away humming “Rule, Britannia;” that must be something of a recommendation.