Major General Sir Lionel Atwill, VC, is in a scrape during the Troubles in Ireland, and he winds up shooting the man who married his sweetheart while he was at the Front, earning that Victoria Cross.... although the man's daughter is actually Atwill's. Atwill immediately gets himself reassigned to Ghana as some form of penance. However, when one of his officers is shot, and the corpse's cousin, James Mason, goes on trial for the crime, Atwill fears that his own murder will come out, and blight young Kathleen Gibson's life.

That's the daughter, of either Atwill or the man he killed. It's one of those stiff-upper-lip things that the English seemed to like, once upon a time. I thought it was paced far too slow, and not helped in the least by the poor condition of the copy I looked at. Location shooting on Africa's Gold Coast might have helped, were it not for the poor condition of the print. As it was, it wasn't much fun watching.

Lionel Atwill (Major-General Sir John Sangye),Lucie Mannheim (Diana Cloam),Steve Geray (Martin Cloam),James Mason (Heverell),Leslie Perrins (Carson),Allan Jeayes (governor),Michael Lambart (Lorne),Henry Hewitt (defence counsel),Wally Patch (Crawford),Kathleen Gibson (Belinda),Tom Gill (Daunt),Philip Strange (Major Challoner),and Frank Atkinson, Evan Thomas, Cyril Knowles.

Director: THOROLD DICKINSON. Screenplay: Katherine Strueby. Dialogue: Walter Meade, Val Valentine. Based on the 1936 novel The General Goes Too Far by Lewis Robinson. Photography: Otto Heller. 2nd unit photography: Jack E. Rogers. Film editor: Sidney Cole. Music: Ernest Irving. Art director: R. Holmes Paul. Costumes designed by Arnulf Viberacker. Production manager: Cecil Dixon. Assistant to the producer: J. Sligo. Sound supervisor: Stephen Dalby. Sound recording: Paul F. Wiser. RCA Sound System. Producer: Gordon Wellesley. A Fanfare Production, made at A.T.P. studios, Ealing.

Copyright 15 July 1938 by Grand National Films, Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 15 July 1938. Released through Associated British Film Distributors in the U.K. in May 1937. 90 minutes. Re-issued in the U.K. by Renown Pictures in 1945 in a version cut to 74 minutes. U.S. length: 59 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Following an ambush in Ireland in 1921, Major Sir John Sangye, V.C., and a civilian, Challoner, find themselves the sole survivors. Challoner accuses Sangye of being the father of his wife's child and draws a revolver. Sangye, however, is too quick and kills him, but Carson, the medical officer, discovers Sangye's secret.

Sixteen years later, Sangye, now a General, is in command of a West African Garrison to which Carson is attached. Sangye's step- daughter, Belinda is with him and Carson knows that she is really the General's own daughter. Carson makes a play for her. Heverell, Carson's cousin and brother officer, is having an affair with Diana, wife of Martin Cloam, a trader, but Cloam erroneously believes that Carson is Diana's lover.

COMMENT: Court-martial drama very capably and stylishly directed by Thorold Dickinson — though we might except his failure to integrate the location material shot by photographer Jack E. Rogers with the studio material photographed by Otto Heller. Acting is solid — and the cast is certainly a very interesting one. The dialogue by Walter Meade and Val Valentine is at its best in the court-room exchanges (we love Atwill's line: "I shall decline to follow you into the realm of vague speculation." — "And the court must decline too, Mr Stebbins.") and holds interest throughout at an engrossing level.

Based upon a novel by Lewis Robinson, who assists with the script, HIGH COMMAND gives us a complex tale of blackmail, murder, and other delights, ranging over two continents and two generations, beginning in 1921 Ireland and concluding in West Africa (most of the film was shot in Nigeria and Gold Coast). General Sir John Sangye (Lionel Atwill),holder of the Victoria Cross and commander of a colonial garrison, in order to help protect his daughter Belinda (Kathleen Gibson) from unsavoury scandal, is forced into making several wrenching decisions, with Atwill giving the finest crafted performance of his career. In his first effort at directing a feature film, Thorold Dickinson displays the fluid work with a camera which marks his distinguished career, and has expertly taken a balance of drama and humour from the script while effectively leading his talented cast into strong performances, notably from Steven Geray, Leslie Perrins, James Mason and Lucie Mannheim. Dickinson, along with cinematographer Otto Heller, benefit from their background in silent cinema, and Ernest Irving's score is adroitly woven into the action, all of which assists in effectuating a masterwork.