Judge for yourself

I've said several times before that I'm not much of a fan of Marlon Brando. That having been said, I know there are a lot of people out there who do love his work, so they might enjoy watching the 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty tonight, in which Brando plays the Fletcher Christian role that had been so memorably portrayed a quarter century earlier by Clark Gable. It's this week's TCM Essential, at 8:00 PM ET.

It should go without saying that I prefer the 1935 version, but to be fair, the later version has some advantages, namely in the technical areas. By 1962 color photography and, more importantly, the wide-screen cinema processes, were much easier to execute than anything that could have been done in the 1930s. On a movie like Mutiny on the Bounty that goes around that South Pacific, that's quite a plus. Unfortunately, it still has Brando....

But even when there's a movie I don't care for, I only think it's fair to tell people to judge for themselves. After all, there are some movies out there which are pretty bad, but which are actually fun precisely because they're so bad. Also, as I said earlier, I'm sure this version of Mutiny on the Bounty will appeal to a lot of the Brando fans out there.