Tyrant of the Sea Tyrant of the Sea Tyrant of the Sea is a 1950 American historical war film directed by Lew Landers and starring Ron Randell, Rhys Williams and Lester Matthews. It is set during the Napoleonic Wars, with Admiral Horatio Nelson appearing as a character. The film began as a project "The Return of Captain Bligh" and was to star Charles Laughton, who had famously played Captain Bligh in "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935). However Laughton did not want to repeat his performance so the project was rewritten to focus on a fictitious character. Rhys Williams played the part based on Bligh.
Charles Laughton and José Ferrer as Greenwald based on the original novel, but did not affect that film's box-office performance. Laughton also directed a staged reading in 1953 of Stephen Vincent Benét's "John Brown's Body", a full-length poem about the American Civil War and its aftermath. The production starred Tyrone Power, Raymond Massey (re-creating his film characterisations of Abraham Lincoln and John Brown), and Judith Anderson. Laughton did not appear himself in either production, but "John Brown's Body" was recorded complete by Columbia Masterworks. Laughton returned to the London stage in May 1958 to direct and star in Jane Arden's "The Party"