Mutiny on the Bounty
Short description
The Bounty sets sail from Portsmouth in 1787 with orders to reach Tahiti and bring back breadfruit plants. Captain William Bligh drives his crew hard to make the crossing quickly, enforcing discipline through harsh treatment and scant provisions. Life aboard is brutal, and the contrast with Tahiti, where the men find an easy existence among the islanders, sharpens their resentment. On the return voyage, First Lieutenant Fletcher Christian turns against Bligh and leads the crew in seizing the ship.
Lewis Milestone directed this 1962 production, the seventh film in the chronological list of his features and the one following Ocean's Eleven. Charles Lederer wrote the screenplay, and Aaron Rosenberg produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Arcola Pictures. Marlon Brando plays Fletcher Christian, with Trevor Howard as William Bligh, Richard Harris as seaman John Mills, Hugh Griffith as Alexander Smith, Richard Haydn as William Brown and Percy Herbert as Matthew Quintal. The credited cast runs to forty-one names. At 185 minutes, the film is an adventure, drama and history piece built on a large scale, with a budget of 19 million dollars and a worldwide box office of 14 million.
Audience response has been generally favorable, with an IMDb rating of 7.2 from over seventeen thousand votes and a TMDB rating of 7.1 from several hundred. A critics' rating of 6.5 from twenty reviews places professional assessment somewhat below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Marlon Brando (1924-2004) not only invented his own lines in scenes with Trevor Howard (1913-1988), making it difficult for the latter to act; he also stuffed his ears with cotton wool so as not to hear Howard's lines.
- The ship, built for the film, sank in the Atlantic on October 29, 2012, during Hurricane Sandy. Two people died – Captain Robin Walbridge and Claudine Christian, a direct descendant of the Bounty's first mate, Fletcher Christian (1764-1793).
- During filming, Brando constantly threw tantrums and caused disagreements, which caused the budget to swell to $25 million. According to contemporaries, in his free time, the star wandered around the island in a loincloth and 'had relations with everything that moved.'
- The scene of the ship's arrival in Tahiti, where it is greeted with enthusiasm by the natives, was filmed in the same location where the actual Bounty ship anchored in 1788. 6,000 local residents were involved as extras in this scene.
- Initially, the film's director was Englishman Carol Reed. But, unable to work with Marlon Brando, he was forced to relinquish his position to American Lewis Milestone.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
