{"id":3998,"date":"2011-12-21T10:32:02","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T15:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3998"},"modified":"2015-07-09T01:57:49","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T05:57:49","slug":"br-mutiny-on-the-bounty-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3998","title":{"rendered":"BR: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Film: Very Good \/ BR Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label: Warner Home Video\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: November 8, 2011<\/p>\n

Genre: Historical Drama<\/p>\n

Synopsis: \u00a0Fletcher Christian moves from officer to reluctant hero in this lavish reworking of the famous Bounty saga.<\/p>\n

Special Features: \u00a0 Alternate Prologue (4:11) and Epilogue (3:23) with text intro \/ 2006 featurette: “After the Cameras Stopped Rolling: The Journey of the Bounty” (24:17) \/ 4 vintage featurettes: “The Story of the H.M.S. Bounty (1961) (28:38) + “The Bounty’s Voyage to St. Petersburg” (24:58) + “The Bounty: Star Attraction at the New York World’s Fair” (1964) (6:39) + “H.M.S. Bounty Sails Again! Millions Cheer Famous Ship on Exciting Voyage” (8:05) \/ Theatrical Trailer<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

There was (and remains) nothing novel about MGM\u2019s decision to dust off the script of their 1935 Mutiny on the Bounty<\/strong> film and attempt a revised version, augmented with Technicolor and widescreen cinematography, plus some tweaks to the storyline to present hero Fletcher Christian as a reluctant hero who becomes a martyr for the cause of human rights.<\/p>\n

Charles Lederer\u2019s new script (with uncredited rewrites and tweaks by a reported 5 additional writers) follows the novel’s standard plot points of a crew assembling for the launch of the H.M.S. Bounty en route to Tahiti for the gathering and delivery of breadfruit<\/a> plants, which according to the new script, are \u2018to feed the British Empire.\u2019 (In reality, the Brits regarded the fruit as simple yet nourishing food that could also feed slaves during transit points, a topic ignored by the film’s screenwriters because it perhaps implied Christian may have supported the slave trade.)<\/p>\n

During the voyage, 1st Lieutenant Christian becomes increasingly disturbed by Captain William Bligh\u2019s cruel treatment of the crew, ranging from whippings, illegal keelhauling<\/a>, and restricting an officer in the crow\u2019s nest all night for slander.<\/p>\n

Once the Bounty arrives in Tahiti, the onboard botanist, William Brown, realizes they must wait 5 months for the breadfruit saplings to sufficiently mature into transportable potted plants, forcing Bligh to watch the crew become accustomed to a horribly cozy lifestyle with bare-chested women, and co-mingle with a society where lovemaking is as natural as breathing air.<\/p>\n

With their matured plants on board, the ship finally sails for Jamaica, but early into their voyage Christian\u2019s disgust for Bligh’s latest cruelty reaches a boiling point, and he incites a mutiny, ultimately booting Bligh and his loyal crewmen into a skiff so they can sail to the nearest island. After wandering the seas, the mutineers stumble upon an erroneously charted land mass – Pitcairn Island<\/a> \u2013 where they agree to settle.<\/p>\n

Although the group find peace and livability, Christian eventually expresses misgivings about their decision to allow Bligh and his kind to sail the seas with impunity, and he suggests the men return to England, face justice, and use their experiences to improve the laws of seamanship in His Majesty\u2019s Navy. Fearing they\u2019ll face the hangman\u2019s noose, the men set fire to the Bounty, and while Christian manages to save the precious sextant, he succumbs to his wounds and dies in the arms of his beloved, Princess Maimiti.<\/p>\n

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The Brando Factor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Regardless of whether it was Lederer or Brando\u2019s choice to have a foppish Christian gradually \u2018grow into an assertive man\u2019 after encountering waves of Bligh\u2019s injustices, Lederer’s martyr the arc for Christian is more dramatically enhanced with the new finale where the reluctant hero dies, but it also allowed Brando to indulge in little bits of silliness that initially presents the film\u2019s hero as a bit of an idiot. In a comic adventure such as The Mark of Zorro<\/a><\/strong> (1940), the humour in seeing the hero pretend to be a fop is well-placed, but the newly revised Christian – a fairly banal man – doesn\u2019t quite endear himself to audiences until the mutiny, which occurs after the intermission, in the film’s last hour.<\/p>\n

Brando isn\u2019t miscast as much as his interpretation of Christian is just odd; his mannerism and soft, almost fuddy-duddy British accent is quite similar to his rendition of the eponymous, corpulent character in The Island of Dr. Moreau<\/strong> (1996). In one scene, he emerges wearing a ridiculous night cap & giant-collared satin gown, which isn\u2019t a far cry from his version of Moreau, in which he speaks a soft British accent, and sports a robe and ice bucket on his head. In the scene where a robed Christian closes the door to his cabin in Bligh’s face, one actually expects to see a small Fletcher Christian Mini-Me walk into the shot in the same nighttime attire.<\/p>\n

The best performance and character interpretation in the ’62 film is Trevor Howard, because his Bligh is less pompous and cartoonish than Charles Laughton\u2019s broad 1935 interpretation. Howard seemed to realize a caricature was no good in a film that espoused to present a humanistic drama \u2013 namely the need to revise the navy\u2019s behaviour code, and its enforcement & practice by what ought to be gentlemen \u2013 so while he does walk funny and barks orders, Howard\u2019s Bligh is a credible, stern taskmaster who was given the Bounty command based on prior career successes with James Cook<\/a>; it\u2019s just that none of his peers felt the need to voice concerns over prior methods.<\/p>\n

Richard Harris is also fine as loyal seaman & mutineer John Mills, and Richard Haydn excels as botanist Brown who juggles disgust for Bligh\u2019s methods with his royal duty in growing and supporting breadfruit plants for their inevitable voyage to England. Veteran character actor Henry Daniell (The Egyptian<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>]) also has a small role as one of the judges who scolds Bligh at his post-mutiny tribunal, and Antoinette Bower (The Invaders<\/a><\/strong>, The Starlost<\/a><\/strong> ) appears as an upscale hottie to whom Christian bids adieu from Portsmouth.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the chief problem with the Bounty tale is the dramatic license in Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall\u2019s novel, giving screenwriters a full green light to to play with the material and fudge facts for a more cinematically dramatic film; the tactic works in the ’62 film, but it is ludicrous to have Christian to survive past the end credits in the \u201835 version, and then die in the \u201962 film due to a \u2018rogue\u2019 boat fire.<\/p>\n

Luckily Brando and Harris \u2013 the film\u2019s weakest characters \u2013 are supported by a fine cast of British actors, and the decision to film their scenes on an fully functional reconstruction of the Bounty pays off much in the way directors Peter Weir and Fraser Hestion were able to extract rich atmosphere through the use of real ships in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World<\/strong> (2003) and Treasure Island<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1988), respectively. There\u2019s never any doubt the men are trapped on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and MGM\u2019s special effects department also pulled off some spectacular model effects when Bligh attempts to take the Bounty around Cape Horn, with disastrous results.<\/p>\n

Flaws aside, Bounty<\/strong> is a classical epic with a slower character arcs that permit more scenes of characters struggling with guilt and various moral issues, and Lewis Milestone\u2019s experience directing large sequences involving masses of actors and extras pays off in the Bounty\u2019s arrival in Tahiti \u2013 one of the most dynamic widescreen sequences ever conceived. Ace cinematographer Robert Surtees exploits the wide curves of sandy beaches and tall cliffs, and the film\u2019s colour palette really exploits the serenity of the tropics and the elaborate dance and feast rituals where Christian meets the chief\u2019s dancing daughter Maimiti, played by pretty but generally stiff actress Tarita, whom Brando eventually wed.<\/p>\n

Bronislau Kaper\u2019s epic score is one of his best, presenting the right balance of majesty, moral horror, and exotica without delving into clich\u00e9s (kitschy Entr\u2019Acte music excepted). His multi-thematic score hits all the right marks without grating repetition, and his love theme is harmonically exquisite, perfectly encapsulating the romance between two unlikely figures whom in this version, do not get to live happily ever after.<\/p>\n

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Hi-Def Bounty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mutiny on the Bounty<\/strong> actually made its HD debut via the defunct HD-DVD format, and Warner Home Video\u2019s BR ports over the same sparkling Ultra Panavision 70 transfer with dynamic stereophonic sound. The BR\u2019s colours also feature rich green and turquoise, and the Tahitian welcome fete glows with a brilliant array of purple, pink, and red. Transferred from a 70mm print, the details are sharp, and the 5.1 sound mix is more enveloping than panned sound effects, which draws attention more towards the music than sound design. Kaper\u2019s score is particularly dynamic when the orchestra swells, and a major highlight is the heavy percussion and brass which booms from the speakers when the Bounty is swarmed by Tahitian boats when she reaches the island for the first time.<\/p>\n

Depth of field and colour richness are particularly profound in Ultra Panavision 70, and there are some elegantly conceived shots that allow materials to snake across the frame, such as the tossing of the breadfruit trees from the Bounty\u2019s rear into the ocean, creating a zigzag flotilla of potted green plants. (One shot that oddly doesn\u2019t<\/em> fare well in the format\u2019s wide 2.76:1 ratio is the film\u2019s opening shot in Portsmouth: as the camera pans along the harbor, across rooftops, and tilts down to reveal the street; the angle is clumsily almost front & centre, and gives the sense of a 35mm shot awkwardly matted down to fit the wide ratio.)<\/p>\n

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The Extras: Deleted Scenes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the inclusion of two deleted scenes meant to bookend the film. According to the text caption, the material was excised prior to its Roadshow engagement, and was seen once, for the film\u2019s 1967 ABC TV broadcast, after which it disappeared from sight. WHV provide decent non-anamorphic transfers of the footage, which is fascinating for their very dour tone.<\/p>\n

Coming right after the Main Titles, the film begins in 1814 with British sailors arriving at Pitcairn Island, finding a Bounty canon half covered in moss, and being confronted by an older version of Brown (Haydn), the sole survivor of the mutineers. He begins to tell the sad tale of his circumstances, and the film flips back to Portsmouth in 1787, under which we hear Brown\u2019s narration which occasionally pops up in the film.<\/p>\n

In the closing bookend, after Christian dies, the camera pans right, and after holding on a burning Bounty, the shot dissolves to Brown, now on a mointaintop, surrounded by women and children. He explains to the British officer (unbilled character actor Torin Thatcher) and crew that he\u2019s the lone male survivor from the Bounty, and he’s quite ready to surrender himself to Navy justice, but the officer tells him there\u2019s little need for an arrest, as the Bounty mutiny helped rewrite the books and codify higher moral and gentlemanly conduct. The British seamen then leave Brown, and the film ends with the lone Bounty survivor, standing with his back to the camera. Although purely unintentional, both his clothes and big hair oddly resemble one of the monkeys from the Planet of the Apes<\/strong> series. (Seriously. Look at the hair and Dr. Zaius jacket pattern.)<\/p>\n

The deleted scenes are important in presenting the film as a kind of testimony from the mutineer\u2019s lone survivor after internecine conflicts had friends and associates waging small war upon each other on Pitcairn (which is historically true), but it also presents Christian as a noble martyr who was perhaps right in wanting the men and himself to returned back to England. In Brown’s visage, one can surmise that had the group acquiesced to Christian’s reasoning, the Bounty wouldn\u2019t have been burned, and the men would\u2019ve have died in vain, fighting each other like elder lords of the flies.<\/p>\n

More than likely, the bookend scenes were dropped because they simply opened and closed the film on two dreary notes, rather than the current edit which begins on a high of ocean adventure, and closes with a dying hero cradled in the arms of his beloved, while their love theme gently flows through the film\u2019s 6-track sound mix. After MGM had spent a fortune realizing the Bounty saga in big screen sight and sound, they wanted people to leave cinemas feeling they too had benefitted from men like Christian, instead of being saddled with several unresolved moral conflicts.<\/p>\n

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The Extras: The Featurettes<\/strong><\/p>\n

The film\u2019s uneven production history is pretty much ignored in the featuretes. Pity a historian wasn\u2019t contacted for a rundown of the film\u2019s genesis; Carol Reed\u2019s walking off the picture after losing patience with Brando\u2019s ego, and Lewis Milestone taking the directorial reigns as a hired gun; nor a separate featurette on the film\u2019s cinematographer and composer; but what has been assembled is a good smattering of contemporary and archival productions about the impressive Bounty replica built from the ground up for a major studio production.<\/p>\n

A 2006 featurette integrates black & white footage from the vintage making-of featurette with interviews of Bounty\u2019s current owner, details of her restoration after being found in bad shape, and bits of fascinating ephemera. The Bounty, for example, was supposed to go up in smoke in the finale, but Brando refused to finish the picture if they torched he ship; in the end, replica side views were built, and the boat wasn\u2019t destroyed, allowing MGM to use the ship as promo material, as seen in the 1964 New York\u2019s World Fair (covered in a separate promo featurette).<\/p>\n

Also included is a bogus newsreel highlighting the Bounty’s trip to Vancouver (!) and cities peppering the south western coast of North America, plus a colour featurette as the ship was taken to her then-final resting place in St. Petersburg, Florida, with stopovers in east coast cities like New York City. (Most of the clips cover the sailors in action, as well as rare glimpses inside the ship’s mess hall.)<\/p>\n

The best featurette is the 1961 MGM \/ Canadian Broadcast Corporation making-of co-production, which focuses on the ship\u2019s construction, and filming on location in Tahiti. Built in Lunenburg<\/a>, Nova Scotia, it\u2019s a classic CBC documentary on the minutia of tradesmen & artisans at work, capturing old ship-building techniques in the renowned city where a square sailing ship hadn\u2019t been built in over 200 years. Everything was crafted by hand, including sails, the superstructure, and deadeyes, and the meaty documentary details the Bounty’s launch and eventual voyage to Tahiti, where it was used as a set, soundstage, and makeshift hotel for cast & crew.<\/p>\n

The Bounty replica was also designed to house the massive Panavision cameras with extensions for wide shots, and we also see one of the author\u2019s sons working as camera assistant: the great Conrad Hall, who would later photograph The Outer Limits<\/strong> TV series (1963-1964), In Cold Blood<\/strong> (1967), and American Beauty<\/strong> (1999).<\/p>\n

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Postscript<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maligned by critics and pundits as MGM\u2019s version of Cleopatra<\/strong> (1963) \u2013 the financial disaster that was underway at Twentieth Century-Fox \u2013 this version of the Bounty saga is sufficiently distinct and unique from other versions, and it retains its own artistic luster in spite of some unwanted character and plot tweaks. Its 3 hour length is partly due to lengthy series designed to intensify Christian\u2019s anger under Bligh\u2019s cruel rule, but as a widescreen extravaganza the ’62 film never disappoints, capturing the pinnacle of big screen filmmaking when studios were using every resource to distinguish their product from free television, and stay alive as audience demographics were starting to favour a younger set with very different tastes in genres.<\/p>\n

The irony is that as studios were trying to find the right widescreen format which they could own and exploit, much in the way Fox enviously standardized film exhibition with their sexy CinemaScope format, they perhaps created more confusion for exhibitors who wanted less boutique technologies in place of something simple yet classically elegant.<\/p>\n

Mutiny on the Bounty<\/strong> was the last film in Ultra Panavision 70, after the studio has previously used the format under their MGM Camera 65 brand name in Ben-Hur<\/strong> (1959) and Raintree<\/strong> County<\/strong> (1957), albeit with County<\/strong> being shown in anamorphic 35mm prints. More specifics on the format can be found at Martin Hart\u2019s awesome Widescreen Museum website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Director Lewis Milestone would never directed another feature film, ending his fine career \u2013 All Quiet on the Western Front<\/strong> (1930), Of Mice and Men<\/strong> (1939), Pork Chop Hill<\/strong> (1959), and Ocean\u2019s Eleven<\/strong> (1960) \u2013 with a trio of episodes for The Richard Boone Show <\/strong>and Arrest and Trial<\/strong> (1963-1964).<\/p>\n

Veteran producer Aaron Rosenberg would produce the dour WWII drama Morituri<\/strong> (1965) with Brando as star, plus a string of detective films with Frank Sinatra, but perhaps his most unique production of the sixties is Fate is the Hunter<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1964), a provocative procedural drama about a modern airplane disaster.<\/p>\n

Nordoff and Halll\u2019s novel has thus far been filmed five times: a silent film in 1916; as In the Wake of the Bounty<\/strong> (1933), with Errol Flynn making his feature film debut; the 1935 <\/a>[M<\/a>] Clark Gable version, the 1962 Marlon Brando version, and as The Bounty <\/strong><\/a>(1984), with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins battling wits..<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Mutiny on the Bounty Wiki<\/a> — H.M.S.Bounty site<\/a> — \u00a0Soundtrack Album <\/a>— Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Film: Very Good \/ BR Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Excellent Label: Warner Home Video\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: November 8, 2011 Genre: Historical Drama Synopsis: \u00a0Fletcher Christian moves from officer to reluctant hero in this lavish reworking of the famous Bounty saga. Special Features: \u00a0 Alternate Prologue (4:11) and Epilogue (3:23) with text intro \/ 2006 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[963,957,961,398,962],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-12u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3998"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3998"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11789,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3998\/revisions\/11789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}