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SMAD. An Organ of Student Opinion. 1936. Volume 7. Number 1.

"The Mutiny of the Bounty"

"The Mutiny of the Bounty"

Photographically and technically this is an excellent picture There have been few productions which con rival it in its extra ordinary attention to details ant the realism of its settings. At no stage docs the suggestion of faking spoil the reality, and that is no mean feat when it is considered that the picture portrays events of 150 years ago.

The opening scene of the "Bounty" getting under way from Portsmouth Harbour, with the shouting of the orders, their reoetition, the frenzied actions of the crew and the ship's slow response is a scene of great Impressiveness remarkably enhanced by particularly fine musical synchronisation. The detailed presentation of storms, of doldrums, and of fair sailing weather forms the background for the portrayal of mutinous reactions to sadistic discipline. No less realistic are subsequent scenes the launching of the canoes at Tahiti, Bligh and his adherents In the ship's boat baling in a storm; the "Pandora" in search of the "Bounty," cruising among the reefs until she eventually grounds; and finally the "Bounty" being wilfully driven ashore on Pitcalrn.

Such perfection is lacking in the costing however. Charles Laughton as William Bligh is too reminiscent of Barrett of Wimpole Street. There seems to be too great a straining to portray a similar hypocritical perversion with the result that both history and the picture suffer. As the "self-made man" his voice is much too cultured and the effect is lamentably incongruous when contracted with American inflexions of Clark Gable and Fronchat Tone, who purport to be scions of English aristocracy. It is a case of the hands are Esau's, but the voice is Jacob's. It is in the matter of the native cast, however, that the picture is weakest. The portrayal of the Tahitians is totally unconvincing and one is reminded from start to finish of an Americanised Hawaii with excerpts from "Son-dera of the River" thrown in. Not only have the faces of the natives little resemblance to full-blooded Tahitians, but the natives are possessed of Western ideas of modesty that were foreign to Tahiti at that period. This portion of the picture is one that presented the greatest difficulties, and over it the producers certainly crashed.—H.