Tunes of Glory

Reviewed by Michael Peck
The Military Book Review

Tunes of Glory has some of the finest acting ever seen on the silver screen. It is the sort of British movie that makes Americans wince at what passes for drama in Hollywood. There are no fancy special effects or big-budget sets. But none are needed in the presence of actors like Sir Alec Guinness and John Mills and the castles and bagpipes of Scotland.

Tunes of Glory is a tale of the tensions within a Scottish infantry regiment a few years after World War II. Guinness plays Maj. Jock Sinclair, the hard-bitten, hard-drinking acting colonel of the regiment. He worked his way up from lowly piper to commander and led his men from El Alamein to Berlin.

But then Lt. Col. Basil Barrow (played by Mills) arrives, a product of the British military academy at Sandhurst and the scion of a military family that has commanded the regiment for generations. He spent World War II being tortured in a Japanese prison camp, but now the army has appointed him to command the regiment.

Sinclair ran the regiment like a personal fiefdom, with constant drinking and carousing. Barrows wants to return it to the prewar days of officers and gentlemen. What ensues is a test of wills between the tough combat leader who knows he can never escape his working-class origins and the aristocrat painfully conscious that he lacks the authority of leading men into battle.

Sinclair sullenly tries to impede Barrows as they vie for the loyalty of the unit's officers. Then Sinclair punches a corporal he caught dating his daughter. The penalty for an officer striking an enlisted man is court-martial and dismissal from the service, but Barrows is torn between following regulations and showing clemency to a hero who awes him.

There aren't many movies that feature soldiers in kilts dancing to bagpipes. But even if the music doesn't grab you, the quality of the acting and dialogue will. Tunes of Glory offers a look into the insular, merciless world of a Scottish regiment. It's also how movies should be made.