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
Clark Gable 1949, Gable married Sylvia Ashley, a British model and actress previously married to Douglas Fairbanks. The relationship was profoundly unsuccessful; they divorced in 1952. Soon followed "Never Let Me Go" (1953), opposite Gene Tierney. Tierney was a favorite of Gable and he was very disappointed when she was replaced in "Mogambo" (because of her mental health problems) by Grace Kelly. "Mogambo" (1953), directed by John Ford, was a somewhat sanitized remake of Gable's earlier pre-Code film "Red Dust", with Jean Harlow and Mary Astor, which had been an even greater success. Ava Gardner was well received in Harlow's leading lady