On April 28 in the year 1789, the crew of a British naval/merchant vessel mutinied, and put their Captain in the long boat, far from home. In July of 1936, a small town in Spain was bombed back into the stone age, and in November of 1975 a merchant freighter was lost in a storm on Lake Superior. These three events would all be nearly forgotten but for one thing: all were the subject of an artistic portrayal. For if you put the name HMS Bounty with mutiny, the name of Guernica with the painting, and Edmund Fitzgerald with the freighter, most people would light up with recognition. A book along with three Hollywood films, a searing portrait, and a mournful song have brought what would otherwise be footnotes into the light.
Art Immortalizes History - Mutiny on Film
It was a story which would be immortalized by authors Charles Nordhoff and James N. Hall in 1932 as the famous "Mutiny on the Bounty". It was a story of a mean-spirited, vicious captain who was bent on his mission to the extent that he was willing to over-work his miserable crew to the point of exhaustion..... and drove them to mutiny. And when Hollywood producer Irving Thalberg read it, he thought it would make an excellent action/adventure movie. Thus was born the caricature of the angry Captain Bligh which would last through time and a film idea which would go through two more major film treatments. Neither Bligh, nor Christian, nor the British Admiralty could ever have imagined that their story would become so famous.
The True Story of Mutiny On the Bounty
By 1786, the British plantation owners of the West Indies concluded that the breadfruit tree, found on the Polynesian island of Tahiti by the great Capt. James Cook was the answer to their need to feed plantation workers. A small armed merchant vessel was dispatched to Tahiti to gather the plant for cultivation in the West Indies. In command was Lieutenant William Bligh. Bounty set sail in December of 1787. It was a long and difficult voyage, and Bligh's condescending and needling style of leadership made matters nearly intolerable. His fist mate was one Fletcher Christian, an aristocratic young man with whom Bligh had worked before, and with whom he had been on good terms. By contemporary standards, Bligh was hardly the worst of Captains. Flogging was a common punishment in the Navies of the day. But Bligh's needling style combined with the allures of the paradise towards which they were heading made for a volatile mix of emotions.
Breadfruit and Tahiti
The Bounty arrived in Tahiti in October of 1788, staying five months while the breadfruit trees matured. Not surprisingly, the crew grew accustomed to the tropical climate, and to the beautiful young Tahitian women. So when the time to depart arrived in April of 1789, were simply unable to return to the tough duties of sailing under what they saw as the thumb of the loathsome Captain Bligh. The result was the infamous mutiny on April 28'th which was bloodless, but done under the gun of a vengeful crew, lead by Bligh's one time friend, Fletcher Christian. Bligh and eighteen crewmen were ushered into the longboat, and the hated breadfruit trees were gleefully tossed into the sea by the mutineers.
Bligh's Seamanship
But Bligh was an extremely skilled seaman, and he guided his 24 foot launch on an amazing 4,000 mile voyage to the island of Timor. He was given the ship Providence to return to Tahiti for the Breadfruit. HMS Pandora was meanwhile dispatched to round up the mutineers. The fourteen mutineers who had returned to and remained on Tahiti were clapped in irons. Pandora wrecked on the return voyage, and four of them were drowned. Of the remaining ten, all were dragged into the dock in England. Six were convicted, of whom three were hanged, two were pardoned, and one escaped on a technicality. The rest of the mutineers, including Mr. Christinan found refuge on a remote, and largely uncharted place called Pitcairn Island. But they fell into internal feuding, and by the time the island was finally visited by an American ship 18 years hence, all of them were dead, save one - John Adams. Fletcher Christian had died, although his remains were never located.
The Films - Gable, Brando, and Gibson as Mr. Christian
The 1936 film with Charles Laughton as Bligh and Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian was a smashing success. As mentioned above, in real life neither Bligh was so cruel, nor Christian so sweet, but Hollywood wrote the history, and the image stuck. A subsequent portrayal by Trevor Howard, and Marlon Brando in 1962 was equally superb, but cast essentially the same light upon the relationship. In 1984, a more historically accurate version starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson went some ways towards setting the record straight. Nevertheless, to be portrayed by Gable, Brando, and Gibson, matinee idols all, is more than the real Fletcher Christian could ever have imagined. And the movies kept this otherwise forgettable story out of the footnotes, and in the public mind.
Sources:
Mr. Bligh's Bad Language by Greg Dening. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, U.K., 1992
What Happened on the Bounty by Bengt Danielson Rand Mc Nally Co., Chicago, 1964.
Brian T. Bolten - I am a retired professional classical musician who hails originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, wherein I now live and work. Having attended ...
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