Mutiny on the Bounty (1935 film) Mutiny on the Bounty (1935 film) Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1935 American drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, based on the Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall novel "Mutiny on the Bounty". The film was one of the biggest hits of its time. Although its historical accuracy has been questioned (inevitably, as it is based on a novel), film critics consider this adaptation to be the best cinematic work inspired by the mutiny. One night in Portsmouth, England in 1787, a press gang breaks into a local tavern and presses all
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"