With the Venice Film Festival debut of William Friedkin‘s The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial only a month away, it’s necessary to state here and now that the absolute best shipboard mutiny scene ever filmed can be found in Carol Reed and Lewis Milestone‘s Mutiny on the Bounty (’62).

Yes, better than the mutinies in Roger Donaldson‘s The Bounty (’84), Lewis Gilbert‘s Damn The Defiant! (‘62), Tony Scott‘s Crimson Tide (‘95) and Edward Dmytryk‘s typhoon takeover in The Caine Mutiny (’54).

In its entirety the ’62 Bounty is problematic but the 10-minute mutiny scene, especially between the 1:40 and 3:30 mark, is absolute aces. I especially adore Marlon Brando‘s dashing and authoritative saber-brandishing during the brief, side-to-side tracking shot between 1:55 and 2:05 — the first and only such shot in the entire film.

My second favorite mutiny scene occurs in Howard Hawks‘ Red River (’48).

Friedkin’s film is apparently set during the Gulf War of the early ’90s. The costars include Kiefer Sutherland as Humphrey Bogart, Jason Clarke as Jose Ferrer, Jake Lacy as Van Johnson and Lewis Pullman as Fred MacMurray.

When I was 10 or thereabouts my father played a psychiatrist in a small-town stage production of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial so don’t tell me.