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Aside from Actor Laughton's performance, Mutiny on the Bounty is all that anyone would have any right to expect. The three-volume epic of Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea and Pitcairn's Island (TIME. Oct. 17, 1932; Jan. 15, 1934; Nov. 5, 1934), written from and for an amazing record, was not designed for neat conversion into a scenario. Despite the efforts of Producer Irving Thalberg, Director Frank Lloyd, three scenarists and $2,000,000 to give it balance, polish and direction, the picture lacks all three. There are intervals when the two hours which it lasts seem as interminable as Bligh's voyage in the open boat must have seemed to its occupants. The narrative, which skips the saga of Pitcairn's Island entirely for Tahiti love interest, still contains enough material for at least three films. These faults are indigenous to the historic material used. The picture has few others. It is superbly photographed by Arthur Edeson. Franchot Tone as Byam, Clark Gable as Christian and Dudley Digges as the ship's doctor perform brilliantly in the cast that supports Laughton. A superb story magnificently told. Mutiny on the Bounty will undoubtedly compensate its makers in box-office cash and artistic credit for the trouble which it caused them. Peter Ibbetson (Paramount), as admirers of George Du Maurier will recall. is the story of an unfortunate young Englishman whose life is materially blighted and spiritually enriched by memories of a childhood romance. Separated from his inamorata at the age of 8, Peter Ibbetson meets her again when he is a thriving young architect, she the Duchess of Towers. Nudged by the coincidence that both have the same dreams at night, they fall in love once more, again with tragic consequences when Peter Ibbetson goes to jail for murder. In this crisis their faculty of "dreaming true" is convenient. Divided by day, they spend their nights together, roaming the happy landscapes of illusion until both die, almost simultaneously.
To the cinema industry, in its sudden and amazingly catholic attention to the literary triumphs of the past ranging from Shakespeare to Way Down East, this tender story was doubtless recommended by the fact that the love which it delineates, while unlicensed, is endowed with supernatural purity. It is the merit of Peter Ibbetson that its evanescent romance does not evaporate entirely in the dissolve treatment which all such dream-epics demand from the camera. This is due partly to the firmly sympathetic touch of Director Henry Hathaway, previously noted for such outdoor works as Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and partly to the presence of Gary Cooper and Ann Harding whose eminently unmystical impersonations correct the narrative's tendency to become shrouded in poetic fantasy.