• "I consider myself a good craftsman. I know my job. I was brought up in a school to make films a certain way. The most important thing you learn as a director is not to direct too much."
  ~ Ronald Neame

Tunes of Glory was a successful novel on military men in peacetime by Scottish author James Kennaway. After Alexander Mackendrick and Ealing passed on a Jack Hawkins starring vehicle, Ronald Neame grabbed the property and cast Alec Guinness and John Mills in the lead roles but very much against type and the two actors provided career best performances in return. Neame fleshed out the cast with top shelf character actors in Dennis Price and Gordon Jackson as well as Kay Walsh and Susannah York in key support. Arthur Ibbetson provided the moody cinematography (much of it on location at Stirling Castle) and Oscar winner Malcolm Arnold (Bridge on The River Kwai) the fine musical score and Kennaway adapted his own novel for the screenplay.

A few years after WWII and a Highland Regiment are changing their commanding officer as acting officer Jock Sinclair (Alec Guinness), a risen-through-the-ranks man is being replaced by Barrow (John Mills), an officer with a blue blood pedigree. Barrow wants everything by-the-book, Sinclair’s more laissez faire approach is ditched and the regiment soon chafes under the extent of the changes. Sinclair’s daughter Morag (Susannah York) is implicated in a possible court martial case via her secret boyfriend and the pressure is ratcheted up on Barrow to show leniency. Tensions flare in this peacetime battle of wills and the situation reaches an unhappy conclusion.

In 1948 there was no common understanding or formal diagnosis of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) – it was possibly grouped by the catch all ‘shell shock’ to designate soldiers who were mentally scarred from their wartime experiences. Barrow is one such character and John Mills plays his predicament superbly, a man caught between duty and capacity, between tradition and expectations. The class system is at play here with the lower class and boorish Sinclair supported by the regiment soldiers keen to undermine the new gentlemanly officer, a toffy-nosed descendent of the regiments founder no less, with the tacit insinuation that somehow Barrow (clipped ‘received’ pronunciation accent and all) was more English than Scottish to compound the issue. Festering resentments, pettiness, perceived sights and ancient enmities are all swirling around in a soup of discontent, aided by heroic alcohol intake of Scotland’s finest malts.

Ronald Neame never loses hold of the central conflict between Sinclair and Barrow, but also adds nuance and dimensionality via the subtleties of a brilliant support cast. Dennis Price is suitably oily as a conniving officer playing both ends and shines in a nasty role tailor made for his dulcet tones and Susannah York is lovely as the daughter in love with the wrong soldier. The scenes in the officers mess and of the regiment at play are beautifully handled and deftly capture the group dynamics. Neame uses the snowy surrounds and the winter setting to underscore the coldness at the heart of system as Barrow finds himself progressively frozen out of the life of the regiment.

Of its many strengths there is no doubt the compelling and overriding drawcard here are the performances of the two lead players giving life to a fine script. Neame had the good sense to cast Guinness and Mills but not even he could have predicted how good the results might be. There is some debate about how each came to their respective parts – Guinness liked to tell that he tossed a coin with Mills, but it seems he was not keen to do another martinet type after his recent Bridge On The River Kwai role. Either way his versatility was well known to Neame who’d directed him in two comedies and produced two of Guinness’s David Lean features. Guinness is electrifying as Sinclair and has never been better on screen in as distinguished a film career as any of the brilliant British acting peers of his generation. John Mills rose to the challenge in a less showy role as Barrow, and his quiet manner and ability to subtly indicate his repressed emotions was every bit as devastating as Guinness’s loudness. It remains one of his finest achievements in a career as decorated as any British actor.

This is a film about men of war in peacetime, restless, bored, damaged and with no external enemy, warring with each other. Unable to talk about their past demons or their feelings they play games as if they’re still at their private schools, bullying or being bullied in a system that prepared them to take orders – from the captains of their cricket or football teams to the captains of their regiments - there’s no accident that the structure is similar. Glory is a notion that has been sold to them from mother’s milk to graduation, how else to convince young men to act as cannon fodder unless there is glory in the doing and valour in the offing. The ‘thank you for your service’ reflex response in the 21^st century is proof that propaganda dies hard and commemorating ‘sacrifice’ is baked in to society. But where is the real sacrifice? Neame and Kennaway were not afraid to show the emptiness behind the braggadocio or the fear that drove groups of psychologically scarred men who lived with the bloody reality of war – where good friends were blown to bits in a calamitous World War and life was cheap for the warmongers who called the tune at their expense.

Ronald Neame was a master film craftsman, a wiz at extracting wonderful performances while never losing sight of the storytelling that informs his best work. Equally adept at comedy (the brilliant The Horse's Mouth starring Alec Guinness) thrillers or drama, he created a sterling body of work over several decades but Tunes of Glory was his masterpiece and remained the film of which he was most proud. Rightly so.