Mutiny on the Bounty (1962 film) The voyage gets off to a difficult start with the discovery that some cheese is missing. Bligh, the true pilferer, is accused of the theft by seaman John Mills (Richard Harris), and Bligh has Mills brutally flogged for showing contempt to his superior officer, to the disgust of his patrician second-in-command, 1st Lieutenant Fletcher Christian (Marlon Brando). The tone for the months to come is summarized by Bligh's ominous pronouncement that "cruelty with a purpose is not cruelty, it is efficiency." Aristocrat Christian is deeply offended by his ambitious captain. Bligh attempts to reach Tahiti sooner by attempting the shorter
Mutiny on the Bounty added a level of homoeroticism to the Bligh–Christian relationship. In 1998, in advance of a BBC documentary film aimed at Bligh's rehabilitation, the respective descendants of the captain and Christian feuded over their contrary versions of the truth. Dea Birkett, the programme's presenter, suggested that "Christian versus Bligh has come to represent rebellion versus authoritarianism, a life constrained versus a life of freedom, sexual repression versus sexual licence." Footnotes References Online Newspapers Bibliography Mutiny on the Bounty The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel occurred in the south Pacific on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by Acting Lieutenant Fletcher