7.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Midshipman Roger Byam joins Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian aboard the HMS Bounty for a voyage to Tahiti. Bligh proves to be a brutal tyrant and, after six pleasant months on Tahiti, Christian leads the crew to mutiny on the homeward voyage. Even though Byam takes no part in the mutiny, he must defend himself against charges that he supported Christian.
Starring: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Herbert Mundin, Eddie QuillanDrama | 100% |
History | 40% |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
Portuguese: Dolby Digital Mono
German: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH, French, German SDH, Portuguese, Spanish, Norwegian
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Is it hopeful tie-in marketing or just coincidence that this week sees the Blu-ray debuts of two of the works for which English-American actor and one- time director Charles Laughton is most remembered? Either way, for fans of the portly, froggy-lipped performer, this week is a windfall. On Tuesday, Criterion put out a stunning new edition of Laughton’s lone directorial effort, 1955’s The Night of the Hunter, a haunting Southern Gothic chiller that went sadly unappreciated in its own time. (So much so, that Laughton would never direct again.) On the same day, Warner Bros released 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty, in which Laughton gave what is perhaps his most memorable acting performance, as the impossibly tyrannical Captain Bligh. Filled with looming shadows and threatened innocence, Hunter is the better film, but it’s not fair to compare the two—one the standalone masterpiece of a one-time auteur, the other a big-budget studio production—and besides, we’re here to talk about Mutiny on the Bounty, which has an entirely different set of cinematic charms. It’s a grand, based-on-a-true-story adventure on the high seas, a voyage that takes us from a seedy English seaside pub to the white beaches of Tahiti and the lonely shores of Pitcairn Island.
Despicable Me
Silent film is currently making a huge resurgence on Blu-ray, thanks to distributors like Kino—who, this month alone, released Metropolis and a
Sherlock, Jr./Three Ages Buster Keaton double feature—but we've yet to see many films from the first decade of "talkies" grace the format.
That'll change though, I'm sure, and if other films from the '30s are treated with as much restorative love and attention as 1935's Mutiny on the
Bounty, then film collectors are in for a treat. Warner Bros has given the film a beautiful 1080p/VC-1 encoded transfer that, minor age-related wear
'n' tear aside, looks spectacular. The studio has clearly spent the time and resources to go frame-by-frame through the film removing specks and other
instances of print damage, and the result is an image that's very nearly pristine, with a rich, undisturbed grain structure. There are a few moments
when brightness flickers, small vertical scratches slice through shots, and stain-like splotches mottle the picture, but these are fleeting and hardly
distracting. Nor are there any apparent compression issues. What you will notice is the clarity of the now-75-year-old print, revealing the nuances of the
naval costuming and the fine texture of the actors' faces. Any softness that is here—most apparent in the rear projection/matting shots—is a product of
the original filming techniques. Furthermore, blacks are dense and whites are bright—though never overheated—giving the film a great sense of depth
and presence.
Note: The images included here are in no way representative of this Blu-ray disc's picture quality. The actual image is presented in its original
1.37:1 aspect ratio.
Rather than try to finagle a 5.1 mix out of the dated audio elements, Warner has wisely reproduced the film's original mono soundtrack with a lossless, single channel DTS-HD Master Audio presentation. The sound is fairly characteristic of its time—slightly tinny highs, not much low-end, dialogue that sounds occasionally, though not obtrusively, crackly—but it is what it is, and there's no cause for complaint. (No hisses, drop-outs, garbled voices, etc.) Herbert Stothart's score is appropriately sweeping, the sound effects have adequate heft, and the actors' lines are almost always intelligible. What more could you ask for?
Pitcairn Island Today (SD, 9:39)
Well, not today today. This is a newsreel/promo from the 1930s examining what life was like then for the islanders. If you were to make a
documentary about Pitcairn Island today, it'd probably be about incest, rape, and violence. Just sayin'.
1936 Newsreel: Mutiny of the Bounty Wins 1935 Award (SD, 1:00)
A Hearst Metrotone newsreel with footage from the 1935 Academy Awards.
Trailers
Includes theatrical trailers for both the 1935 film (SD, 3:14) and the 1962 Marlon Brando-starring remake (SD, 4:03).
Digibook Packaging
The disc is housed in a classy 35-page digibook, complete with stills, production notes, vintage poster designs, on-set photos, and profiles of Frank Lloyd,
Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, and Franchot Tone.
I'm a sucker for an Old Hollywood adventure on the high seas, and Mutiny on the Bounty is one of the better ones, featuring shot-on-location Tahitian scenery and captivating performances from Clark Gable and Charles Laughton, who is so effectively tyrannical here you'll want to reach inside the screen and strangle him. The Blu-ray release is unfortunately short on supplementary materials, but it boasts a fantastically restored high definition transfer, lossless audio, and comes housed in a sturdy—and informative!—digibook. Recommended.
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