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 describe the pleasure which the blessing of the sight of this land diffused among us", Bligh wrote. On 14 June, with a makeshift Union Jack hoisted, they sailed into Coupang harbour. In Coupang, Bligh reported the mutiny to the authorities, and wrote to his wife: "Know then, my own Dear Betsey, I have lost the "Bounty" ..." Nelson the botanist quickly succumbed to the harsh Coupang climate and died. On 20 August, the party departed for Batavia (now Jakarta) to await a ship for Europe; the cook Thomas Hall died there, having been ill for weeks. Bligh obtained passages home