The New Pictures

Tunes of Glory (Colin Lesslie; Lopert). Up at the castle the pipers are piping a jig for Jock Sinclair. Rank: acting C.O. of a Highland battalion. Origin: wrong side of Glasgow. Military record: rose through the ranks, took command of the battalion at El Alamein. led it to glory. Personal data: has hair like ginger and a temper to match. Remarks: Jock loves the battalion, the battalion loves Jock, and the paughty people who see this picture will love him too. because Jock Sinclair is one of the most lifelike creatures that ever sprang full-snooted from the jovial brow of Sir Alec Guinness.

In Tunes of Glory, the screen version of James Kennaway's moody and affecting novel, Jock is both hero and villain of a garrison tragedy. The tragedy begins when Jock, as acting C.O., is superseded by "a spry wee gent" (as Jock ripsnortingly describes him) "wi' tabs in place o' tits." The new colonel (John Mills) is in fact a rather glum plate of porridge, but he is just what the battalion needs on the morning after old Jock's riotous regime. He tightens up training procedures, clears out the administrative mess.

Jock of course takes it all as a personal affront, and when the new boy outrages the other officers too--by suggesting that the manner of their footing in the fling, a point of pride in kilted regiments, is a disgrace to Scotland--Jock sees his chance and takes it. At the next regimental rout he defiantly leads a drunken reel. The colonel throws a tantrum, disgracing him self before his officers and the battalion before its guests. But the triumph and the whisky go to Jock's head, and he makes an even more costly blunder than the colonel's: he "bashes" a corporal (John Eraser) for walking out with his daughter (Susannah York). A court-martial is indicated. The colonel generously refuses to order it. To his amazement, the battalion interprets his generosity as weakness, and old Jock cannily abets the error. The train is laid that leads to a moral catastrophe in which both men are destroyed.

As a drama, Tunes of Glory falls somewhat short of its ambitious intentions. The script, written by Novelist Kennaway, succeeds in waging the internecine peace of barracks life, in suggesting the almost homosexual intensity of male relationships in a world too safe from women; and Director Ronald (The Horse's Mouth) Neame makes the most of these opportunities. But the last third of the film is confused by errors of exposition. The picture begins and middles along as a warmly human comedy of military character. The mood of the violent conclusion is unprepared and therefore unacceptable.

Even so, Tunes of Glory is a thoroughly superior piece of entertainment, thanks to Actor Guinness. It is amazing how this shy. soft man can transform himself--with a hank of hair, a dab of rouge and an almost imperceptible modulation of his India-rubber personality--into a roaring extravert, all man and a doorway wide.

Where the Hot Wind Blows (Titanus; Embassy). "Gigolo!" hoots a smalltime Italian racketeer (Yves Montand) when his son tries to run away with a wealthy married woman (Melina Mercouri). In shame the boy abandons her. His father then looks the woman over, approves of his son's selection and announces suavely: "You cannot go home. My room is at your disposal." Stunned, she follows him. In the room he grabs her, kisses her, slugs her, rips her dress away. "Please," she murmurs seductively, "turn out the light." Triumphant, he turns to do as she asks, turns back in horror to see her leaping from the balcony to the street.

The scene is a melodramatic master stroke, a fusion of white heat of irony and violence, and for it Jules Dassin (Rififi, Never on Sunday), who both wrote and directed the film, deserves full credit. Unfortunately, Moviemaker Dassin must also bear most of the blame for the rest, which is mildly but consistently awful. Adapted crudely from La Loi, Roger Vailland's fine Prix Goncourt novel of 1957, Hot Wind is laden with too many big European names (Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Pierre Brasseur, Paolo Stoppa, in addition to Montand and Mercouri). When not glumly stumbling over each other or aggressively hogging the camera, the actors all seem loyally determined to play down to Actress Lollobrigida's level, and with the help of the worst dubbing job since Mickey Mouse first spoke in Swahili, they just about make it.

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