Tunes of Glory

Tunes of Glory is a 1960 British drama film directed by Ronald Neame, based on the novel and screenplay by James Kennaway. The film is a dark psychological drama focusing on events in a wintry Scottish Highland regimental barracks in the period following the Second World War. It stars Alec Guinness and John Mills, and features Dennis Price, Kay Walsh, John Fraser, Susannah York, Duncan MacRae and Gordon Jackson.

The film opens in a Battalion officers mess of an unnamed Highland Regiment in the early postwar era. Major Jock Sinclair Alec Guinness announces that this will be his last day as Commanding Officer. Sinclair, who had been in command since the battalions colonel was killed in action during the North African campaign in Second World War, is to be replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Basil Barrow John Mills. Although Major Sinclair led the battalion through the rest of the war, Brigade HQ considered Barrow to be a more appropriate peacetime commanding officer.Barrow arrives early and observes the battalions officers including Sinclair dancing rowdily. Barrow and Sinclair briefly swap their respective military backgrounds. Sinclair joined the regiment as an enlisted bandsman and rose through the ranks, winning the Military Medal and Distinguished Service Order in the war. Barrow by contrast came to the regiment directly from Oxford University, his ancestors having been colonel of the regiment before him although he served only for a year with the regiment back in 1933 before being posted to special duties. When Sinclair humorously tells of the time he was briefly thrown in Barlinnie Prison for being drunk and disorderly also in 1933, Barrow rather reticently mentions his own experience as a prisoner in a Japanese POW camp. Sinclair dismissively presupposes Barrow received preferential treatment being an officer officers privileges and amateur theatricals and sat out the war. But in fact Barrow is deeply psychologically scarred after being tortured by the Japanese but does not tell this to Sinclair who privately resents the fact that he is being replaced by a stupid wee man. ........

Source: Wikipedia