Although not the most famous, this movie is widely considered to be the best and most accurate adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel.
Charlton Heston and Christian Bale became good friends from working together on this movie. Bale was one of the few high profile celebrities seen at Heston's funeral years later.
When sailing through the Windward Passage to Jamaica, the Bounty's crew flew the pirate flag one day for fun. However, this resulted in the Cuban Navy sailing out and boarding them.
In the DVD director's commentary, Fraser C. Heston says that they were not able to show Long John Silver's parrot on his shoulder as often as they would have liked, because the bird tended to nibble on Charlton Heston], his father's, ear.