CRITICISM OF FILM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22833, 18 March 1936, Page 10

CRITICISM OF FILM

“MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY” DISTORTION OF HISTORY (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, March 12. The Metro - Goldwyn - Mayer film “ Mutiny on the Bounty ” is proving a box office sensation at one of Sydney’s best theatres, but scholars and historians of this city, with the early history of which Bligh, the “villain” of the film, was identified for a number of years, are making vigorous protests against the fictitious twists given to the real history of the mutiny. The editor’s correspondence columns of the Sydney Morning Herald have included, since the-film's showing opened, letters from critics of this aspect of the film, although it is practically universally admitted that the pictorial and technical merit of the film is extremely high. One of the bitterest critics of the film is Dr George Mackaness, whose “ The Life of Vice-admiral Bligh ” recently won him a history research scholarship of Melbourne University. He claims that the character and career of William Bligh “are being indelibly imprinted on the minds of millions of English-speak-ing people, not as history actually portrays him, but as they are fantastically conceived in the mind of some Hollywood producer with his eye on thie high spots —real or fictitious —of romance, and on the box office receipts. Thousands who know no history, eyes aglow with .wonder and moral indignation, are greedily sopping up the highly seasoned but realistic film version of the alleged sadistic exploits of an eighteenth century naval super monster, whose only redeeming feature is his famous boat voyage —and this, at any rate, the producer could not very well alter —and who by his harsh treatment of his crew is popularly supposed to have been alone responsible for bringing about the most famous mutiny in British nautical history.” Mackaness says that, historically, the film is “ punk.” " The whole story,” he says, “has been distorted and 'improved ’ to make a picture fan’s holiday. To attempt to separate, all the strands of fact and fiction would be impossible. A few of the gross historical inaccuracies are that there was no such person on the Bounty as the ‘ hero,’ Roger Byam —lie is but a glorified substitute for the 10-year-old Manxman, Peter Hey wood, whom Bligh had befriended; the Bounty’s crew did not participate in a flogging round the fleet —another invention of the producer; Tom Ellison, a boy of about 14 when the Bounty sailed from England, was not a married man with a child. Good ‘ sob stuff ’ this to introduce into a popular film.” Mackaness similarly exposes other distortions in the film, especially those designed to show Bligh’s character in the most brutal and least favourable light. Then he describes the real Bligh as the “man who fought valiantly at Camperdown and Copenhagen; the man publicly commended by Nelson; the man who sailed round the world with Cook; the man who, as master of the Resolution, was responsible for the navigation of the vessel, and whose charts and surveys, with his capacity ns an explorer, entitle him to be placed in the forefront of navigators of all time; the man who, in an open boat 23ft long, with 18 companions, successfully accomplished a journey of 3618 miles across seas almost uncharted, in tempestuous weather, exposed to the attacks of savages, and with provisions not exceeding a gill of water and an ounce and a-half of broad a day—the whole constituting an epic of the sea which does much to remove from his fair name the undeserved obliquy cast upon him by sympathisers with the mutineers, the man who, when a new Governor was needed for New South Wales, one able and competent to crush the rum runners, bootleggers, and hijackers, who, under the guise of officers of the New South Wales Corps, had reduced the colony to a great sea of spirits, to their own pecuniary advantage. was without hesitation nominated by Sir Joseph Banks.”

Banks, when ho recommended Bligh (this was after the mutiny on the Bounty), said of him: “Being asked for one who has integrity unimpcached, a mind capable of providing its own resources in difficulties without leaning on others for advice, firm in discipline, civil in deportment, and not subject to whimper and whine when. severity of discipline is required to meet emergencies, I immediately answered—l know of no one but Captain Bligh who will suit.”

“Too long and too frequently has the fair name of Bligh been tarnished by vilification and undeserved abuse. ’ writes Maekancss. “ Faults be had. many and definite. What man has not? Even the best of men are moulded out of faults. Ho was undoubtedly addicted to strong language. He was a stern disciplinarian, perhaps somewhat of a martinet —but an efficient martinet. Worshipping efficiency himself, he demanded efficiency in others, but on the Bounty frequently did not get it. If Doubting Thomases are inclined to question this, they will find the whole evidence in the Mitchell Library (Sydney) manuscripts. It is time that Australians, if not the whole world, should see Bligh as he really was, nothing added, no virtue diminished. Far too much sympathy has been expended on Bligli’s mutinous crew. When a certain amount of romantic sentiment has been worked up around Christian and Heywood, the proper perspective is lost.”