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 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,