A look at the South Seas Island near Tahiti inhabited by relatives of the crew of mutineers from the schooner "The Bounty." Released to arouse interest in the forthcoming feature Mutiny on t... Read allA look at the South Seas Island near Tahiti inhabited by relatives of the crew of mutineers from the schooner "The Bounty." Released to arouse interest in the forthcoming feature Mutiny on the Bounty (1935).A look at the South Seas Island near Tahiti inhabited by relatives of the crew of mutineers from the schooner "The Bounty." Released to arouse interest in the forthcoming feature Mutiny on the Bounty (1935).
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis documentary, filmed in 1935 to promote Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), claims to show wreckage from "The Bounty". However the shipwreck was not discovered until 1957.
- ConnectionsEdited from In the Wake of the Bounty (1933)
Featured review
Secluded sanctuary
Geographically, islands that few people know about are some of the most interesting places to get educated on. This short from MGM focuses on Pitcairn Island; a place that will be forever associated with one of the Royal Navy's greatest tragedies. The Bounty, a British ship attempting to sail to Tahiti in order to bring food to slaves working in the West Indies, was overtaken by a revolt in the year 1787. The captain, William Bligh, was a firm believer in hierarchy and order, so much so that the crew mutinied against him under a mate named Fletcher Christian. The Bounty eventually goes back to tahiti, and the crew marry native women. As anybody would guess, Tahiti is a beautiful place whose splendor is rivalled by very few locations on Earth, but Fletcher and the others know that even in a remote island like this, british authorities would eventually come for them and they would be hanged for piracy. This is why the crew decided to come to Pitcairn Island, many miles southeast of tahiti, and guarded by coral reefs. Even now, the wrecks of many ships can be seen around the island, a testament to the perils of its surrounding rock formations. Fletcher took some useful items from the Bounty, then sank the ship so the royal navy couldn't trace him. 150 years later, the descendants of Fletcher and the other crewmen still live on the island, having never seen a proper civilization. The islands only village is Adamstown, precariously placed on a ledge over the ocean. Many of the houses on pitcairn are made of ship parts. Although they are related to the original settlers who came on the Bounty, the people living on the island today look very different as a result of inbreeding and ethnic mixing between Europeans and tahitians. William Christian, great grandson of Fletcher, is shown working the fields. The village blacksmith still uses smithing items that came from the Bounty a century and a half earlier. We learn that despite being isolated from every civilization on earth, the residents of pitcairn follow Christianity after it was introduced to them by John Adams; the Bounty's only survivor. After a baby on the island falls ill, volunteers take turns lighting a flaming beacon on the coast all night so that a passing ship might notice it. It seems unbelievable, but a lone ship does actually come across the beacon and sends a doctor to help. And so, life continues on pitcairn island, a place unaffected by the savage nature of the outside world, but was ironically created by an act of violence that occurred on a ship very long ago. This is a pretty nice short. It's kind of hypocritical how the narrator tends to gloss over Bligh's oppressiveness which caused the revolt in the first place and only mentions the "unforgivable crimes" of the sailors, but the facts presented are of great importance to history. The islanders have in their possession priceless relics taken from the ship, things that would be worth a king's ransom to any self-respecting museum, but the islanders care little about their monetary value. Everything they could ever want is already on the island. Access to technology may be exciting, but as anyone today knows, it has led to all sorts of problems. Many would give anything to live in a place like pitcairn, secluded from society. I probably wouldn't want to live there, but it's fun to visit.
helpful•20
- nickenchuggets
- Jul 3, 2023
Details
- Runtime10 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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