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
Fletcher Christian the mutineers' lives on Pitcairn. Christian was portrayed in films by: The 1935 and 1962 films are based on the 1932 novel "Mutiny on the Bounty" in which Christian is a major character and is generally portrayed positively. The authors of that novel, Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, also wrote two sequels, one of which, "Pitcairn's Island", is the story of the tragic events after the mutiny that apparently resulted in Christian's death along with other violent deaths on Pitcairn Island. (The other sequel, "Men Against the Sea", is the story of Bligh's voyage after the mutiny.) This series