Tropicalities

THE film, “Mutiny on the Bounty,” based on the book by Messrs. Nordhoff and Hall, of Tahiti, has been drawing “capa city houses” in Sydney all the month. From the box-office viewpoint, it is 100 per cent, a winner. As entertainment, it is mag nificent. Laughton (as Bligh) gives a superb ■ performance: and Clark Gable (Fletcher Christian) and Franchot Tone have done a job that places them in the front rank of screendom.

As a contribution to history, the film is worthless, because the producers, in cer tain important directions, have departed from the historical accuracy which Nord hoff and Hall so carefully preserved.

Christian is shown escaping from Tahiti in the Bounty just one leap ahead of the pursuing Pandora. Actually, the Bounty had sailed away into the unknown long before the Pandora reached Tahiti. Bligh is shown, in command of the Pandora, screaming across the eastern seas in search of Christian. Bligh was never on the Pandora. Bligh is made a prominent figure at the court-martial of the mu tineers who were found by the Pandora in Tahiti. Actually. Bligh never appeared at the court-martial.

It is a pity: but film-producers can do these things nowadays without check.

They have no regard whatever for popu lar education or instruction —history, art, patriotism, everything that matters, is prostituted to box-office considerations. A recent, amusing satire put it this way: Cecil B. de Mille, Sorely against his will.

Was persuaded to leave Moses Out of the Wars of the Roses. * * * MR. Hakon Mielche, who will be re membered as the talented artist and writer who accompanied the Danish scientific expedition in the South Seas in 1934 (when they were wrecked in the Santa Cruz Islands), had intended to visit New Guinea this year. He now writes from Denmark to the Pacific Islands Monthly, that he has been ordered by his publishers to go to South America in stead, and may visit Australia and New Guinea in a year or two hence.

“But by that time,” adds Mr. Mielche, “Mr. Jack Hides possibly will have ex plored every bit of the interior, and there will be nothing worth while writing about!” It would appear that the fame of Mr. Hides has spread very far indeed.

Mr. Mielche will circumnavigate South America—passing down the eastern coast, spending several months in and about the Magellan Strait and Tierra del Fuego, and then visiting Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. • • • /~)NE has often read of the telepathic powers of New Guinea natives. Here is a recent authentic case from Fiji, which will take some explaining.

On February 15, the Government motor vessel Derek was wrecked on the island of Komo, in Southern Lau. The Derek carried no wireless, and there is no radio station in the vicinity. Therefore, the only communication is by cutter. The first to reach Suva from Komo after the mishap was the cutter Tui Yunilagi, which brought the castaways from the ship on February 25.

On Monday, the 17th, two days after the stranding, there was a strong and per sistent rumour “on the beach” that the Derek had been wrecked. Inquiries of

the Harbourmaster’s office elicited the Information that there was no means by which the news could have come in from Lau, and a similar inquiry at the office of the Public Works Department, which controls the Derek, drew a similar answer, an official going so far as to say that the department had heard the rumour and had tried to trace it. They could not confirm it because, so far as they could ascertain, there had been absolutely no communication with Lau.

Residents said, “beach rumour,” in a disgusted tone, and let the matter drop.

For once, however, rumour was right, and, ten days after the wreck, the crew arrived in Suva by cutter, which vessel also carries no radio.

How did the news get to Suva on the 17th? * * « A SERIES of 100 lectures is now being given throughout Germany, to arouse a public demand for the return of the former German colonies. The newspapers say that the lecturer is Major Schnoeckel, of the Nazi Colonial Department of Berlin University. Evidently, he is identical with Major Paul Schnoeckel, who, in June, 1933, wrote to the Pacific Islands Monthly and made a remarkable appeal to British people in the South Seas to try and bring about a better relationship between Ger many and Britain. * • * IN the film, “Mutiny on the Bounty,”

Bligh is presented as a peculiarly un attractive character —a harsh, cruel, mean spirited tyrant, without a single redeem ing feature. We get only a glimpse of Bligh in the famous open-boat voyage, wherein he displayed amazing courage and seamanship; and it is not surprising that, at the end of the film, the women of the audience are literally sitting up and spit ting at the monster that is created by Laughton’s genius. Many people have rushed into print to say that Bligh was not so bad as he is painted here—one

writer, Dr. Mackaness, of Sydney Univer sity, even insists that Bligh was quite a charming person.

This is a revival of an ancient argument.

There is much to be said on both sides.

The man who drove the Bounty crew into mutiny and, later, when Governor of New South Wales, caused the garrison to rise in revolt and ship him away, must have had some particularly hateful qualities. But Laughton’s' presentation is historically useless because he persistently shows Bligh as a commander ruled wholly by a mad passion for revenge, indulging an insane lust for inflicting pain in retalia tion for suspected resentment of his authority. That is inaccurate. Bligh was so bad that his memory deserves appro brium —but he was not as bad as that. * ♦ * .

MANY people still remember the clever and diplomatic way in which the Lanati rebellion in Western Samoa in 1908 was handled by Dr. Solf (German Governor of the Territory), whose death has just been announced. He spoke the Samoan language well, and understood Samoan psychology. The friendships he made during his Governorship, 1900-1910, en dured during his lifetime —he kept up a correspondence with residents of Samoa until recently. His daughter, born in Samoa, was given a Samoan name. • • • announcement of his appointment ■*- to the Governorship of Fiji reached Sir Arthur Richards on his birthday, Febru ary 21. Sir Arthur, whose appointment is referred to on page 54 of this issue, be came Governor of British North Borneo in 1930, and Governor of Gambia in 1933.

He received the C.M.G. in 1933, and was raised to K.C.M.G. in 1935. He is a mar ried man with one son and one daughter. * * * IN January we published an inquiry, from America, for the address of the “Tin-Can Mailman”—Mr. Ramsay, who used to swim the mail between ship and shore, in the Tongan Islands. Mr. W.

Candler, South Seas traveller for Messrs.

Gillespie Bros. Ltd., reports that Mr. Ram say is now a resident of Pago Pago, American Samoa.