Today, April 28, is the anniversary of the famous mutiny on board the H.M.S. Bounty, when Fletcher Christian, the ship’s “master’s mate,” seized control of the ship and set its captain, William Bligh, adrift in the Pacific with a small group of sailors who refused to join Christian’s rebellion. The story of the mutiny and its aftermath has become a romantic cautionary tale that inspired three major Hollywood treatments, each with star-studded casts. If you ask the average American what happened on The Bounty, he or she will probably reply that a cruel captain who abused his crew was challenged by an honorable and courageous officer who took over the ship from a monster, and met with tragedy himself. Virtually no accounts of the event support that version of events, but that is the legend, and it persists to this day.

Why? It’s a better story, at least a clearer and more morally uplifting story than the truth, that’s why. Real life is messy and our heroes and villains tend to be more complicated than our emotions can handle, and this is especially true of the Bounty story. You see above the most famous moment from the great John Ford film, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence,” when the old newspaper editor refuses to report the shocking discovery that the heroic deed leading to the successful political career of a famous statesman and U.S. Senator never occurred. Ethics Alarms has discussed the “Print the legend” phenomenon so many times that it has its own tag. None of the examples that I have examined deserve that tag more than the mutiny on the Bounty.

Hollywood is mostly at fault, as usual. The first movie about the mutiny starred perpetual hero Clark Gable as Christian and the hideous Charles Laughton (great, great actor, though) as the villainous captain. The story as told in that film was false but neat: a brave and virtuous sailor saves the crew at the cost of his career and for the love of a native woman. The film was based less on history than a series of novels “Mutiny on the Bounty” and “Men Against the Sea,” the first two installments of “The Bounty Trilogy” by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Luckily for storytellers but unfortunately for history, the main characters in the event had names that made their roles inevitable: “Captain Bligh” sounds like a Dickensian villain, and “Fleycher Christian” sounds like a perfect hero if there ever was one. The movie was a smash box office hit in 1935 and an instant classic: so what if the story was largely hooey?

That version of the incident had more than 25 years to sink in before a new screen version of “Mutiny on the Bounty” came out. In the 1962 remake, Captain Bligh was even more repulsive than Charles Laughton (Trevor Howard played the sadistic captain), but Fletcher Christian was a less standard issue hero than Gable (but almost everyone was), with Marlon Brando playing the mutineer as an upper class fop who becomes sympathetic with the plight of the common man. The movie was a box office flop after a disastrous production journey that saw Brando begin his descent into the unbearable egomaniac star persona that plagued the rest of his career.

After another 22 years, Hollywood tried again, this time getting closer to the truth, which audiences made clear that they didn’t want to see. Mel Gibson played Christian with Anthony Hopkins, before his Hannibal the Cannibal period, played a more sympathetic Captain Bligh. Both actors portrayed their characters as conflicted and complex, with Hopkins succeeding more than Gibson. The film is generally regarded as the worst of the three. It managed to conform to neither the facts or the legend and satisfied no one, including the cast and the production team.

What the legend of the Bounty mutiny won’t permit telling is….

• Bligh was no more cruel and demanding than every other sea captain of the time, arguable less so. Analysts fault his leadership for being inconsistent, as he sometimes let disciplinary infractions go unpunished while at other times would insist on higher standards. Behavioral scientist B.F. Skinner proved that unpredictable reinforcement drove lab rats crazy, and the same applies to sailors.
• Christian was just 22 years old, untrained as a leader, and it showed. He also did not join the voyage as an officer, but as a regular seaman. Captain Bligh promoted him during the voyage.
• Bligh and Christian knew each other before the fateful mission, and were friends.
• On a difficult voyage where crew morale and discipline were bound to be tested, Fletcher Christian betrayed his friend and superior. He was more villain than hero; Bligh was more victim than villain.
• When Christian set Bligh adrift in the small boat, he was assumed he was sentencing the captain and the loyal crew members to a horrible death.
• Bligh foiled that plan by saving himself and the 18 sailors by navigating over 3,500 nautical miles to Timor in the Dutch East Indies, from which they made their way back to England to report the mutiny. It is regarded as one of the most amazing feats of seamanship in nautical history. Now that would make a good movie!
• Bligh was  exonerated in a court-martial for the loss of the Bounty and continued his career in the Royal Navy.

After all this time, the chances of the facts catching up to the legend are slim.