The film tells a heavily fictionalized story of the real-life mutiny led by Fletcher Christian against William Bligh, captain of HMAV Bounty, in 1789.

When the Bounty reaches her destination, the crew revels in the easygoing life of the tropical paradise – and in the free-love philosophies of the Tahitian women.

Bligh's agitation is further fueled by the fact that the dormancy period of the breadfruit means more months of delay until the plants can be potted.

As departure day nears, three men, including seaman Mills, attempt to desert but are caught by Christian and clapped in irons by Bligh.

One member of the crew falls from the rigging to his death while attempting to retrieve the drinking ladle, as the other assaults Bligh and is fatally keelhauled.

When a crewman becomes gravely ill from drinking seawater, Christian attempts to give him fresh water, in violation of the Captain's orders.

With nothing left to lose, Christian takes command of the ship and sets Bligh and the loyalist members of the crew adrift in the longboat with a compass and meager rations, telling them to make for the island of Tofua.

He returns to Britain with remarkable speed and weeks later, a court martial exonerates Bligh of any misdeeds for the loss of the Bounty and recommends an expedition to arrest the mutineers and bring them to trial.

However, once on Pitcairn, Christian decides that it is their duty to return to Britain and testify to Bligh's wrongdoing, and he asks his men to sail with him.

To prevent this possibility, Mills and the rest set the Bounty on fire and Christian is fatally burned after retrieving (and eventually losing) the ship's sextant.

Following the success of 1935's Mutiny on the Bounty, director Frank Lloyd announced plans in 1940 to make a sequel that focused on Captain Bligh in later life, to star Spencer Tracy or Charles Laughton.

In the 1950s, MGM remade a number of their earlier successes in color and widescreen formats, including Scaramouche and The Prisoner of Zenda.

MGM also owned the rights to a third book, Men Against the Sea, which dealt with Bligh's boat voyage after the mutiny.

[4] In 1959, Paramount announced that it would make a rival Bounty film, to be written and directed by James Clavell and called The Mutineers.

In order to take full advantage of Technicolor and the widescreen format (shooting in MGM Camera 65), the production was to be filmed on location in Tahiti, with cinematographer Robert Surtees.

"[6] Brando wrote in his memoirs that he was offered the lead in Lawrence of Arabia around the same time but chose the Bounty because he preferred to go to Tahiti, a place that had long fascinated him, rather than film six months in the desert.

"Lean was a very good director, but he took so long to make a movie that I would have dried up in the desert like a puddle of water", wrote Brando.

Eventually, William Driscoll, Borden Chase (writing in August 1960), Howard Clewes and Charles Lederer wrote all the scripts.

[18] Despite the ongoing changes to the script and the production's financial and logistical problems, Brando later wrote about how much he enjoyed the island and his interactions with its native people:From the moment I saw it, reality surpassed even my fantasies about Tahiti, and I had some of the best times of my life making Mutiny on the Bounty.

Bounty anchored offshore, and every day as soon as the director said, "Cut" for the last time, I ripped off my British naval officer's uniform and dove off the ship into the bay to swim with the Tahitian extras working on the movie.

Reed's wife, Penelope Dudley-Ward, wrote to her cousin David Birkin from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on February 25: Poor Carol is going through such agony here (mental this time) with this film.

All the top people - the heads of the studio, the producer, the New York office - are quarrelling among themselves and in a panic from their own inefficiency - and now they are all starting to blame Carol for being slow!

"[11] Milestone said the script was constantly being rewritten by Charles Lederer on set, with input from Rosenberg, Sol Siegel and Joseph Vogel, as well as Brando.

[27] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: "There's much that is eye-filling and gripping as pure spectacle", but criticized Marlon Brando for making Fletcher Christian "more a dandy than a formidable ship's officer ... one feels the performance is intended either as a travesty or a lark.

"[28] Variety called the film "often overwhelmingly spectacular" and "generally superior" to the 1935 version, adding, "Brando in many ways is giving the finest performance of his career.

"[30] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called the film an "unquestionably handsome spectacular" that "teeters headlong into absurdity" in its third hour, summarizing: "It would seem that the mutiny occurred only because the hero blew his top and is egotistically disturbed because he did so.

"[31] The Monthly Film Bulletin of the UK criticized Brando for an "outrageously phony upper-class English accent" and the direction for "looking suspiciously like a multiple hack job.

[35] The cost overruns led to Sol Siegel departing as head of production in early 1962 replaced by Robert Weitman.

In May 1962 Vogel acknowledged the film cost $20,000,000 more than twice its original estimates, which meant it would need $40 million to make a profit.

[47] The film was shown on ABC on Sunday, September 24, 1967,[47] which included a restored prologue and epilogue, cut from release prints of the film before its roadshow premiere, wherein HMS Briton comes across the uncharted island in 1814, and its crew encounters Brown as the only surviving member of the Bounty mutineers (who eventually killed each other out of hate), along with surviving Tahiti islanders, and although Brown is willing to return and face the consequences of their actions, Captain Staines (played by Torin Thatcher) informs him that it is no longer necessary, as the Articles of War had been changed 10 years prior.