THE CAINE MUTINY vs. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY?

Mutiny: Mu´ti`ny
n. 1. Insurrection against constituted authority, particularly military or naval authority; concerted revolt against the rules of discipline or the lawful commands of a superior officer; hence, generally, forcible resistance to rightful authority; insubordination.
2. Violent commotion; tumult; strife.

v. i. 1. To rise against, or refuse to obey, lawful authority in military or naval service; to excite, or to be guilty of, mutiny or mutinous conduct; to revolt against one's superior officer, or any rightful authority.
[imp. & p. p. Mutinied ; p. pr. & vb. n. Mutinying .]
2. To fall into strife; to quarrel.

When the bridge crew refused to obey Queeg's commands (foolish as they may have been), and Maryk relieved him of his command, it constituted a mutiny. It does not necessarily need to be an armed rebellion, as HMS Bounty was. Granted, the USS Caine was fictional, while the HMS Bounty was very real.

If the same events that fictionally happened on Caine really transpired today, you had better believe that the men responsible would be sitting at the end of the long green table at a General Court Martial under the charge of mutiny. The U.S. Navy sends guys away for several years for writing bad checks! They would certainly do that or worse to guys who commit one of the worst acts possible at sea.

Actually, in the book, Maryk isn't tried on a charge of mutiny.

The Judge Advocate feels that it would be too difficult to prove a charge, for the simple reason that Maryk invoked an article in Navy Regulations. (Namely Article 184, which allowed for an unauthorized relief of a captain under certain circumstances). As well, after the relief, Maryk continued to treat Queeg with respect as he was still a ranking officer. That made a mutiny charge hard to stand up. Thus, he was charged with conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline (it's described as a catch-all charge, for cases that fall between cracks of other charges). The stipulation is that he misapplied Article 184 in relieving Queeg as the circumstances did not merit the relief. Thus, Greenwald's line of attack is to prove that Queeg was sufficiently incompetent (if not mentally ill) that Article 184 was legally justified.

The two cases cannot be compared -even allowing that one is fictional. In The Caine Mutiny, an incompetent captain was relieved by his second-in-command, through an obscure passage in the regulation, for the purpose of ensuring the ship's safety. In Mutiny on the Bounty, a harsh -albeit skilled and highly competent- captain is victim of a crew uprising led by the Master's Mate (Fletcher Christian). The ultimate goal was for the crew to escape to an idyllic life in Tahiti.

In the novel on which The Caine Mutiny was based, Barney Greenwald said, after the verdict, that Captain Queeg really wasn't insane. Rather, the court had been tricked into thinking Queeg was insane by Greenwald's unfair questioning of Queeg and one of the psychiatrists.

I agree with you about The Bounty being the best of all the movies. What Bligh accomplished getting his men to the Dutch East Indies and safety was one amazing feat. I read the Bounty trilogy years ago and Men Against the Sea which chronicles their story on that voyage was in my opinion the best of the three books.