In the Wake of the Bounty

In the Wake of the Bounty
Directed by	Charles Chauvel
Produced by	Charles Chauvel
Written by	Charles Chauvel
Starring	Mayne Lynton Errol Flynn
Narrated by	Arthur Greenaway
Music by	Lionel Hart
Cinematography	Tasman Higgins
Edited by	William Shepherd
Production company	Expeditionary Films
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	15 March 1933
Running time	66 mins
Country	Australia
Language	English
Budget	₤6,500
Box office	£7,000 (Australia)

In the Wake of the Bounty (1933) is an Australian film directed by Charles Chauvel about the 1789 Mutiny on the Bounty. It is notable as the screen debut of Errol Flynn, playing Fletcher Christian. The film preceded MGM's more famous Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, by two years.

Chauvel's film uses introductory enacted scenes showing the mutiny, followed by documentary footage, anthropological style, of the mutineers' descendants on Pitcairn Island. Chauvel also used footage of Polynesian women dancers; and film of an underwater shipwreck, filmed with a glass bottomed boat, which he believed was the Bounty but was probably not. This was Chauvel's first 'talkie' and he had clearly at this stage not yet learned to direct actors: the dialogue is very stiff and amateurish. The use of long sections of documentary footage with a voice over, combined with acted scenes, is similar to the hybrid silent and talking pictures that were produced during the transition to sound. It also represents the combination of interests of the director, and he returned to documentary toward the end of his career with the BBC television series Walkabout. Despite the poorly written dialogue, the documentary sections retain their excellence. A return to enactments at the end of the film, with one scripted modern scene in which a child suffers because of the lack of regular ship visits which could have taken the child to hospital, probably sought to make the film a useful voice for the Pitcairn Island community, who had been generous with their participation.

The film mixed re-enactments with documentary, and focused not so much on the mutiny itself as on its consequences.

There was at least one other film of the Bounty story prior to Chauvel's film, by Australians Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell, The Mutiny of the Bounty (1916), filmed in New Zealand. This film was to be the first of a series of travel adventures to be made by Chauvel for his new company, Expeditionary Films.