Star Review
Ronald Neame had co-scripted and produced David Lean's Great Expectations (1946) and he reunited two of its stars, Alec Guinness and John Mills, for his compelling 1960 adaptation of James Kennaway's semi-autobiographical novel. Many believed at the time that Neame had cast the actors in the wrong roles, but he proved wholly justified in his decision to have Guinness play the boorish action man who had risen through the ranks and Mills the Oxford-educated ex-POW whose grandfather had once commanded their Scottish regiment. Moreover, Neame pitched their battle for the hearts and minds of the men with such calculating precision that audience loyalties also soon become strained. Guinness and Mills have their showboating moments, but there's also much to admire in the work of such Scottish stalwarts as Gordon Jackson, Allan Cuthbertson and Duncan Macrae, alongside the ever-scheming Dennis Price and the debuting Susannah York. Released in the midst of the New Wave maelstrom that was then buffeting European cinema, this unapologetically theatrical picture gave notice of the durability of the British ‘Tradition of Quality’.
David Parkinson on 12th July 2007
View all 92 of David Parkinson’s reviews
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Film Description
A strait-laced officer takes up his new posting as CO of a Scottish Highland regiment, but clashes with his easygoing predecessor every step of the way in this intelligent, witty and powerful character study.
Major Jock Sinclair (Alec Guinness) is the Acting Colonel of a Scottish regiment that has returned home following WWII. A charismatic drunk with little interest in commanding a peacetime unit, Jock's regiment is undisciplined and rules are easily bent.
Enter Jock’s replacement, Lieut. Col. Basil Barrow (John Mills), a veteran of a Japanese POW camp and a man devoted to restoring the faded glory of the regiment. Barrow is an ex-public schoolboy who has been working behind a desk at Sandhurst, while Jock is a hero of El Alamein, an ex-convict who worked his way up through the ranks – the two men clash instantly.
The officers who served under Jock appreciate his personal bravery and his wartime abilities, but they hate his boorish ways and some of them disperse to Barrow, hoping that he will bring back the regiment's former days of glory.
When Jock finds his daughter, Morag (Susannah York), in a bar with Corporal Fraser (John Fraser), Jock assaults the soldier and faces a possible court-martial. Barrow has a choice: send the case up to high command, or he can personally settle it within the regiment.
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The Browning Version (1951)
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