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 in "Alibi" (1928); he was the first actor to portray the Belgian detective in this stage adaptation of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", and as William Marble in "Payment Deferred", making his Lyceum Theatre (New York) debut in 1931. In 1926, he played the role of the criminal Ficsur in the original London production of Ferenc Molnár's "Liliom" (The play became a musical in 1945 by Rodgers and Hammerstein as "Carousel", where Ficsur became Jigger Craigin, but Laughton never appeared in the musical version). While Laughton is most remembered for his film career, he continued to work in the theatre,