Tune of Glory is a battle of wits between two damaged men.
Alec Guinness plays Lt Colonel Jock Sinclair, a boorish Scotsman who was in temporary command of a Scottish regiment. Colonel Basil Barrow (John Mills) is the new commanding officer who arrives at the regiment a day early. On the day Sinclair has his raucous leaving party.
Barrow is not happy with what he sees, the way the men do the Highland fling and tells the regiment to shape up when he takes over command.
Sinclair worked his way up the military hierarchy. Popular with some of the men, not others especially the English officers. He is also fond of the drink, maybe too fond. Barrow was born into a military family, he went to all the right schools for military officers. Barrow also spent World War 2 in a prisoner of war camp where he was tortured including being waterboarded.
Sinclair has no time for Barrow and sabotages him from the very beginning. After Sinclair hits a corporal who he spots in the pub with his daughter, Sinclair weasels his way out of a court martial by promising Barrow he would be on his best behaviour. A promise he has no intention of keeping.
Excellently acted by Guinness and Mills. Tune of Glory does very much comes across as an overly melodramatic stage play. Barrow's problem was he needed to talk properly to the officers on his side to get Sinclair's number. He needed to be more sly and cunning, like Major Charles Scott (Dennis Price) who is friendly with Sinclair but undermines him when the opportunity presents himself.
Maybe Sinclair was right about Barrow. He was a toy soldier.
Alec Guinness plays Lt Colonel Jock Sinclair, a boorish Scotsman who was in temporary command of a Scottish regiment. Colonel Basil Barrow (John Mills) is the new commanding officer who arrives at the regiment a day early. On the day Sinclair has his raucous leaving party.
Barrow is not happy with what he sees, the way the men do the Highland fling and tells the regiment to shape up when he takes over command.
Sinclair worked his way up the military hierarchy. Popular with some of the men, not others especially the English officers. He is also fond of the drink, maybe too fond. Barrow was born into a military family, he went to all the right schools for military officers. Barrow also spent World War 2 in a prisoner of war camp where he was tortured including being waterboarded.
Sinclair has no time for Barrow and sabotages him from the very beginning. After Sinclair hits a corporal who he spots in the pub with his daughter, Sinclair weasels his way out of a court martial by promising Barrow he would be on his best behaviour. A promise he has no intention of keeping.
Excellently acted by Guinness and Mills. Tune of Glory does very much comes across as an overly melodramatic stage play. Barrow's problem was he needed to talk properly to the officers on his side to get Sinclair's number. He needed to be more sly and cunning, like Major Charles Scott (Dennis Price) who is friendly with Sinclair but undermines him when the opportunity presents himself.
Maybe Sinclair was right about Barrow. He was a toy soldier.