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 plain bad?" On the other hand, Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" declared that "Forever and a Day" boasted "superb performances". C. A. Lejeune, wrote Callow, was "shocked" by the poor quality of Laughton's work of that period: "One of the most painful screen phenomena of latter years", she wrote in "The Observer", "has been the decline and fall of Charles Laughton." On the other hand, David Shipman, in his book "The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years", said "Laughton was a total actor. His range was wide". Laughton played a cowardly schoolmaster in occupied France in "This Land