In the Wake of the Bounty

In the Wake of the Bounty
Directed by	Charles Chauvel
Produced by	Charles Chauvel
Written by	Charles Chauvel
Starring	Mayne Lynton Errol Flynn
Cinematography	Tasman Higgins
Editing by	William Shepherd
Release date(s)	1933
Running time	60 min
Country	Australia
Language	English
Budget	₤6,500

In the Wake of the Bounty (1933) is an Australian film directed by Charles Chauvel and is notable as the screen debut of Errol Flynn, playing Fletcher Christian; with Mayne Lynton playing Captain Bligh. The film explores the story of the Bounty and is based on the 1932 novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The Australian film preceded MGM's more famous Mutiny on the Bounty by two years.

Chauvel's film uses introductory enacted scenes showing the mutiny, followed by much more interesting documentary footage, anthropological style, of the mutineers' descendants on Pitcairn Island (this footage now has great historic value). Chauvel also used footage of Polynesian women dancers; and film of an underwater shipwreck, filmed with a glass bottomed boat, which he believed was the Bounty but was probably not. This was Chauvel's first 'talkie' and he had clearly not at this stage learned to direct actors: the dialogue is very stiff and amateurish The use of long sections of documentary footage with a voice over, combined with acted scenes, is similar to the hybrid silent and talking pictures that were produced during the transition to sound. It also represents the combination of interests of the director, and he returned to documentary towards the end of his career with the BBC television series Walkabout. While the enacted scenes have been described as cringe-making to today's viewers, not only on account of the wooden acting but also the ludicrously unconvincing sets and poorly written dialogue, the documentary sections retain their excellence. A return to enactments at the end of the film, with one scripted modern scene in which a child suffers because of the lack of regular ship visits which could have taken the child to hospital, probably sought to make the film a useful voice for the Pitcairn Island community, who had been generous with their participation.

The film mixed re-enactments with documentary, and focused not so much on the mutiny itself as on its consequences. To provide a long postscript to the story of the mutiny, the Chauvels went to Pitcairn Island and shot some very interesting footage of the Bounty descendants, spending three months on the island. He also included footage of bare-breasted Tahitian dancers which caused a temporary problem with the censor. The documentary parts were later edited out and used as promotional material for the 1935 Hollywood film about the mutiny.

Errol Flynn and the film

When Flynn became famous for playing pirates at Warner Bros. a couple of years later, and told people about this film, few people believed him. Flynn, a Tasmanian, had made the film in a Sydney studio although he often claimed he made it in the South Pacific as an isolated brush with acting before trying his luck in America. He would also later claim to be descended from Bounty mutineers.

There was at least one other film of the Bounty story prior to Chauvel's film, by Australians Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyall, The Mutiny of the Bounty (1916), filmed in New Zealand.

In 1935, some of the documentary scenes from Chauvel's film were bought by MGM and re-edited into trailers for the Hollywood film.

Cast

• Arthur Greenaway , the Narrator
• Mayne Lynton as Lieut. Bligh
• Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian
• Victor Gouriet as Michael Byrne - The 'Bounty's' Blind Fiddler
• John Warwick as Midshipman Young

External links

• In the Wake of the Bounty at the Internet Movie Database
• In the Wake of the Bounty is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• In the Wake of the Bounty at the National Film and Sound Archive
• In the Wake of the Bounty at Australian Screen Online

See also

• Cinema of Australia