Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), based on the popular namesake novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, and starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable as Bligh and Christian, respectively. The film's story was presented, says Dening, as "the classic conflict between tyranny and a just cause"; Laughton's portrayal became in the public mind the definitive Bligh, "a byword for sadistic tyranny". The two subsequent major films, "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962) with Trevor Howard and Marlon Brando, and "The Bounty" (1984) with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, largely perpetuated this image of Bligh and that of Christian as tragic hero. The latter film
Mutiny on the Bounty unfortunate in his timing: The story of the mutiny became public knowledge when the Romantic poets first commanded the literary scene. Bligh's chief apologist was Sir Joseph Banks, while Christian was championed by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Among historians' attempts to portray Bligh more sympathetically are those of Richard Hough (1972) and Caroline Alexander (2003). Hough depicts ""an unsurpassed foul-weather commander ... I would go through hell and high water with him, but not for one day in the same ship on a calm sea"". Alexander presents Bligh as over-anxious, solicitous of his crew's well-being, and utterly devoted to his task,