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
Charles Laughton best of the 1950s, and has been selected by the United States National Film Registry for preservation in the Library of Congress. At the time of its original release it was a critical and box-office failure, and Laughton never directed again. The documentary "Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter" by Robert Gitt (2002) features preserved rushes and outtakes with Laughton's audible off-camera direction. Laughton made his London stage debut in Gogol's "The Government Inspector" (1926). He appeared in many West End plays in the following few years and his earliest successes on the stage were as Hercule Poirot