In the Wake of the Bounty

Description of the film didn't inspire me but decided to watch it simply because it was the film debut of a Hollywood great, Errol Flynn. On that basis I wasn't expecting much and I wasn't disappointed as a result.

It bears little resemblance to later, more popular, successful versions of the story. If you like Errol Flynn, watch it. If you like curious old films, watch it. If you want to compare it against other versions, watch it. Otherwise give it a miss.

I have to admit that I was not sure of what I would be seeing when I finally got a copy of In The Wake Of The Bounty. The Australian film is noted today for being the debut of Errol Flynn in motion pictures is mostly a fine documentary about the lives of the folks on rugged Pitcairn Island, the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the women they took with them from Tahiti.

When MGM did it's grand scale production of Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935, Louis B. Mayer bought all the rights to this film and it was never shown in America intact. Pieces of it were seen in short documentary subjects about Pitcairn Island.

The producer/director/writer of In The Wake Of The Bounty was Charles Clauvel who some would credit with being the father of Australian cinema. He and his wife and baby girl took motion picture cameras and a crew to Pitcairn Island and put together a fine feature film documentary. And he had about 15 to 20 minutes of acting.

It's a technique that Americans will be familiar with if they watch the History Channel. It calls for the use of some brief live action sequences interspersed with documentary footage and voice-over commentary about whatever event the program is talking about. This is the function of Errol Flynn and the small cast who reenact the Bounty mutiny in microcosm.

Certainly Charles Clauvel did not have the facilities that Louis B. Mayer had so reviewers should go easy on this intrepid Australian who went out to a rarely seen part of the world. Instead of comparing In The Wake Of The Bounty to it's later and more known successors, it might better be compared to some of the documentaries of Frank Buck or Martin and Osa Johnson.

To be sure the acting isn't of the best caliber, I've seen worse however. The film really didn't need the actors, it should have been much better as a straight documentary.

On the other hand Errol Flynn might then have toiled in obscurity and who knows who would have played all those swashbuckling heroes at Warner Brothers.

...that's a mix of poor historical reenactments and documentary footage, from writer-producer-director Charles Chauvel. A crusty old sailor tells some other crusty old sailors the story of the HMS Bounty and the mutiny, led by Fletcher Christian (Errol Flynn), against the tyrannical Captain Bligh (Mayne Lynton). The second half of the 1-hour movie is documentary footage of Pitcairn Island in contemporary (1932) times, showing the society that has evolved there descended from the mutineers and their Tahitian wives.

This picture is most notable for being Errol Flynn's movie debut, but he, like the rest of the reenactment section, is terrible, offering no hint at his future star quality. These passages are cheap looking, poorly staged, and almost comically inept. The documentary footage is excellent, though, and I especially liked the brief glimpses of what remained of the Bounty's hull at the bottom of the bay at Pitcairn. If any of this second half of the movie looks familiar, it was later bought by MGM and edited into a pair of short subjects that ran with the 1935 Mutiny On the Bounty.

I bought this 1933 picture because I was curious to see the first Errol Flynn movie role. He is playing Fletcher Christian in the historically based Bounty mutiny. He is supposed to be himself a descendant of Christian, which gives an added interest. If you expect a good adventure movie, a kind of an Australian Captain Blood, then you'll sure be disappointed. Better see the Clark Gable or Marlon Brando versions. This is more like a Flaherty documentary, although more amateurly delivered. Image quality is quite defective, specially at the beginning, and rythm is sometimes boring. Real sequences depicting places where the Bounty left its trace constitute the majority of the picture, and between them the dramatised story is now and then added (and abruptly ended). An ancient mariner (Victor Gouriet) remembers the adventure and tells it to a tavern audience. Captain Blight (Mayne Lynton) figures in only a couple of scenes, but Flynn hasn't got much more; the detailed story of the breadfruit plant is left aside. The characters are superficially approached, but this seems to be the producer's intention, giving more time to show Tahitian habits and life at Pitcairn at the time. And it's in this sense that it's worth viewing. Many descendants of the mutineers are shown, as well as community-based island life and their struggle against the wild sea. The alleged remains of the Bounty can still be seen through the clear waters in the natural bay where it lays. I guess the real adventure was in fact lived by the film crew.

Funny is to notice the fact that the picture consistently anticipates producer Charles Chauvel & wife future style, which would develop between long-feature and documentary films.

Most reviewers seem to have the wrong idea about this film, it's not meant to be a version of 'Mutiny on the Bounty' or even a feature film! It's basically a doco/travelogue, with a few 'flashbacks' enacting a few scenes of the Bounty 'drama'. The main interest is the scenes filmed on Pitcairn Island, probably the first, and the far from ideal living conditions of the inhabitants. Of the 'dramatic' scenes spliced in, considering the lead was most likely a seasoned 'stage' actor, and hammy as they come, the young, totally inexperienced Errol Flynn, signed for his looks alone, probably comes out best of all? It wasn't this film that Jack Warner signed him on, it was a 'lost' movie called 'Murder in Monte Carlo' he made in England about a year later that got him to Hollywood, and the rest as they say, is history! Incidentally, the derogatory remarks made about Australia by another reviewer, are nonsense!