While in
other Hollywood - produced
films about perversions
of authority on the high seas, such as the various versions
of Mutiny on the Bounty (Frank Lloyd, 1935; Lewis Milestone, 1962) or Billy Budd (Peter Ustinov, 1962), a comparatively ordinary voyage is complicated by the disastrously warped personality
of a deranged (thus, socially maladjusted) captain (Charles Laughton, Trevor Howard, Peter Ustinov), in Botany Bay the obscure and torturous solipsism
of the captain colours every
aspect of the voyage: he does not
stand out as exemplary, but instead characterizes the «transportation» process itself.