Charles Nordhoff - Film Treatments

Film Treatments

The Nordhoff-Hall books were the source for both the 1935 and the 1962 MGM films, Mutiny on the Bounty. The 1984 film, The Bounty, was based on other sources, more well-researched views of the actual events of 1789 in which the mutiny results not from maltreatment by Captain Bligh but from the lure of South Pacific life for the ship's crew.

In addition to the Bounty story, five other of Nordhoff's books, all of them collaborations with James Norman Hall, would be turned into films. (The screenplays were all done by other writers).

• The Hurricane (1937) directed by John Ford, was based on the novel of the same name. It was re-made in 1979.

• The Tuttles of Tahiti (1942) with Charles Laughton, was based on the novel No More Gas.

• Passage to Marseille (1944) directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, was based on Men Without Country.

• High Barbaree (1947) with Van Johnson and June Allyson was based on the novel of the same name.

• Botany Bay (1953) with Alan Ladd and James Mason, was adapted from the novel of the same name.