Main Cast: Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker, Michael Gough, Ernst Thesiger
Release Year: 1951
Country: UK
Run Time: 82 minutes
Plot
Alec Guinness has one of his finest comic roles in this Ealing satirical comedy about a much patronized amateur scientist whose latest invention creates an uproar in the British textile industry. In the British manufacturing country of Northern England, factory owner Michael Corland (Michael Gough) is showing competitor Alan Bimley (Cecil Parker) around his plant, hoping to borrow some money and marry off his daughter Daphne (Joan Greenwood). They come upon a curious contraption that turns out to be an experiment by employee Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness). Being a lower class worker, Sidney is summarily fired from his job. Sidney ends up working at Bimley's factory, where he is befriended by militant worker Bertha (Vida Hope). Daphne spots Sidney at the factory and he explains to her the results of his experiment -- a material that is indestructible and impervious to dirt. Bimley discovers this project and throws Sidney out. But Daphne, impressed by his experiments, funds Sidney, installing him in his own laboratory. After a few false starts, Sidney develops a pure white material that can't be dirtied or ruined. But it seems Sidney's invention is too brilliant and effective; if a material is marketed that will last forever, textile mills will go out of business and workers will lose their jobs. Suddenly, poor, luckless Sidney has both management and labor banding together to combat his new invention. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Review
Few movies define "droll" better than this dry and subtle comedy that gently nudges laughter from its audience. In the tradition of other great Ealing comedies of the 1940s and 1950s, The Man in the White Suit sets up its comic premise with well-crafted care (the screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award), and the cast splendidly brings its genial eccentrics to life. Alec Guinness is superb as the cheerfully obsessive scientist Sidney Stratton, who despite his peculiarities seems genuinely driven to improve the world; Guinness's determination, genial self-confidence, and dash of private school arrogance make Sidney more than a standard absent-minded genius. Director Alexander Mackendrick gives the material just the right amount of buoyancy while playing the comedy with sly simplicity; if The Man in the White Suit aims for chuckles rather than belly laughs, it generates enough of them to be an engaging and intelligent entertainment from start to finish. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Vida Hope - Bertha; Henry Mollison - Hoskins; Patric Doonan - Frank; Duncan Lamont - Harry; Harold Goodwin - Wilkins; Colin Gordon - Hill; Joan Harben - Miss Johnson; Arthur Howard - Roberts; Roddy Hughes - Green/Roberts; Stuart Latham - Harrison; Miles Malleson - Tailor; Frank Atkinson - Baker; George Benson - The Lodger; Howard Marion-Crawford - Cranford; Charles Cullum - First Company Director; Judith Furse - Nurse Gamage; Edie Martin - Mrs. Watson; Jack McNaughton - Taxi Driver; Mandy Miller - Gladdie; Charlotte Mitchell - Mill Girl; Des Roberts - Mannering; Ewan Roberts - Fotheringay; Russell Waters - Davidson; Brian Worth - King; Bill Russell - Night Watchman; Scott Harold - Express Reporter; Jack Howard; Olaf Olsen - Knudsen; John Rudling - Wilson; Charles Saynor - Pete; F.B.J. Sharp
Guinness plays Sidney Stratton, a brilliant and obsessed young researcher working in a textile mill. He invents an incredibly strong fibre which repels dirt and never wears out. From its fabric he makes a suit which is brilliant white because it cannot absorb dye, and slightly luminous because it includes radioactive elements. Stratton is lauded as a genius until both management and the trade union realise the consequence of his invention - once consumers have purchased enough cloth, demand will drop precipitously and put the textile industry out of business. The managers try to trick Stratton into signing away the rights to his invention but he refuses. Managers and workers each try to shut him away, but he escapes.
The climax sees Stratton running through the streets at night in his glowing white suit, pursued by both the managers and the employees. As the crowd advances, his suit begins breaking apart as the chemical structure of the fibre breaks apart with time. The mob, realizing that his yarn has a flaw, rips pieces off his suit in triumph, until he is left standing in his underwear. The next day, Stratton is dismissed from his job. Departing, he consults his chemistry notes. A realization hits, and he exclaims "I see!" and strides off to perhaps try again.
