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 when Gable was in high school, his father had financial difficulties. Will decided to settle his debts and try his hand at farming, and the family moved to Ravenna, Ohio, near Akron. Despite his father's insistence that he work the farm, Gable soon left to work in Akron for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. At 17, Clark Gable was inspired to be an actor after seeing the play "The Bird of Paradise", but he was not able to make a real start until he turned 21 and inherited some money. By then, his stepmother had died, and his father