Mutiny on the Bounty (1962 film) performance is intended either as a travesty or a lark." "Variety" called the film "often overwhelmingly spectacular" and "generally superior" to the 1935 version, adding, "Brando in many ways is giving the finest performance of his career." Brendan Gill of "The New Yorker" wrote that the screenwriter and directors "haven't failed, but a genuine success has been beyond their grasp. One reason for this is that they've received no help from Marlon Brando, who plays Fletcher Christian as a sort of seagoing Hamlet. Since what Fletcher Christian has to say is so much less interesting than what Hamlet has to
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,