Mutiny on the Bounty 1790, the Admiralty despatched the frigate HMS "Pandora" under Captain Edward Edwards to capture the mutineers and return them to England to stand trial. "Pandora" arrived at Tahiti on 23 March 1791 and, within a few days, all 14 surviving "Bounty" men had either surrendered or been captured. Edwards made no distinction between mutineers and those who claimed they had been detained on "Bounty" unwillingly; all were incarcerated in a specially constructed prison erected on "Pandora"'s quarterdeck, dubbed "Pandora's Box". "Pandora" remained at Tahiti for five weeks while Captain Edwards unsuccessfully sought information on "Bounty's" whereabouts. The ship finally sailed
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