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, Rovi
Alec Guinness' sharp bird nose and watery eyes helped him play characters who were misfits on the margins of society. He made for a kindly but stubborn rebel in the Ealing comedies.
While on the surface it's a comic fable with a sense of humor as dry as a cracker, the movie possesses a sharp edge that rises like a shark fin above the natty British drollery.
Anchor Bay's DVD release ... rightfully honors both Guinness and the Ealing comedies from the '40s and '50s. Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe's work is preserved in a print that is a thing of beauty...
"Man in the White Suit" is perhaps, along with "Kind Hearts and Coronets," the pinnacle of the Ealing film. It's a very sophisticated and subtle comedy/farce that takes a dig at a number of the cultural institutions that characterise northern England. It's not so much a satire directed at capitalism but an opprobrium
of the suspicious relationship between capital and labour and the broader unworkable relationship of commercial achievement with scientific progress. The success of the film resides in the subtlety with which these issues are explored and the even-handedness by which they are dealt with. At a more basic level the film is an excellent example of a farce as the frustration, misinterpretation and exaggerated comedy are delivered with a breath-taking pace. Very well written, even better direction and uniformly spot-on performances make this one of the great British films of the 1950s.
Another great Ealing Comedy, with the star of the studio, Alec Guiness always teriffic in the productions. Not as great as previoious ealing productions, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets, but still a must see, for British comedy and Ealing fans.
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