Year: 1960
Director: Ronald Neames
Country: UK
Language: English
Based on a popular 1956 novel by James Keenaway, Tunes of Glory was a work that few thought would make a good film adaptation. This is primarily because cinematic depiction of military was infused with exciting action and scenes of battle, whereas this material was primarily about a war of words, ideals and classes. Similar films did extremely poorly at the box office and seemed to vanish from the public's conscious.
After World War II, Major Jock Sinclair (Alec Guiness) who rose from the ranks, is replaced by a peace-time Oxford-educated Commanding Officer (John Mills), leading to a dramatic conflict between the two.
Tunes of Glory managed to be a critical and commercial success despite the public moving on from war films. Director Ronald Neame shows us his impressive ability to deconstruct a complex novel and present it to us in a more clear way without sacrificing the integrity of its themes, challenging philosophy, and complex characters. Our sympathies manage to lie with both characters, as Neames pacing slowly builds to a startling climax.
Neame's script, as well as his cinematography, gives us a claustrophobic feel into an exclusive military caste. Much of the film rests on the fine performances of Alec Guiness and John Mills, who do a tremendous job. Portraying an alcoholic, Guiness could have easily overdone the drunkard aspect of his character, reducing Sinclair to a caricature, but thankfully he plays it with sincerity and we feel terribly sorry for him.
The film is a remarkable accomplishment that could have only been successful with this director and these actors. I could not imagine anybody else playing Sinclair (Guiness) or Barrow (Mills). This character driven drama illustrates the good and evil contained within us all, ultimately giving us a vulnerable side of humanity that we often see in films from that era.
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