Tunes of Glory

The British cinema is littered with movies (from Bridge on the River Kwai to Tiara Tahiti) purporting to explore the military mind and caste ethics, but withdrawing into compromise before getting anywhere much. Here (an adaptation by James Kennaway of his own novel), as the English martinet taking over a Highland regiment in its bleak Scottish quarters, Mills comes across with rather more conviction than Guinness as his raffishly pawky predecessor, 'Jock' Sinclair. The clash of native temperaments and military customs between the two, leading both to mental crack-ups, has the stuff of real drama to it, but is gradually frittered away into silly sentimental melodramatics.