H.M.S. Defiant

“The cry was MUTINY... and the decks ran red!...”

Aboard the Defiant in 1797, the crew joins a fleet-wide effort to send a petition of grievances to the Admiralty, on one condition: no violence. Lieutenant Scott-Padget (Dirk Bogarde), the first officer, makes that hard, answering every small failing with cruelty, while Captain Crawford (Alec Guinness) tries to hold the ship together. Lewis Gilbert's film is about men kept from striking back while those above them go on hurting them.