Mutiny on the Bounty (1962 film) to return to Britain and testify to Bligh's wrongdoing and asks his men to sail with him. To prevent this possibility the men set the ship on fire and Christian is fatally burned while trying to save it. Following the success of 1935's "Mutiny on the Bounty", director Frank Lloyd announced plans in 1940 to make a sequel which focused on Captain Bligh in later life, to star Spencer Tracy or Charles Laughton. No film resulted. In 1945 Casey Wilson wrote a script for "Christian of the Bounty", which was to star Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian and focus on
Mutiny on the Bounty officers. These signed the ship's roster as able seamen, but were quartered with the midshipmen and treated on equal terms with them. Most of "Bounty"'s crew were chosen by Bligh or were recommended to him by influential patrons. William Peckover the gunner and Joseph Coleman the armourer had been with Cook and Bligh on HMS "Resolution"; several others had sailed under Bligh more recently on the "Britannia". Among these was the 23-year-old Fletcher Christian, who came from a wealthy Cumberland family descended from Manx gentry. Christian had chosen a life at sea rather than the legal career envisaged by his