Rounding out my recent exposure to four of the Ealing comedies is The Man in the White Suit, from 1951. It is a highly enjoyable film – not riotously funny, but certainly entertaining enough for a pleasant evening. I rank it as my third favorite among the four Ealing comedies that I've seen. It has a bit more thematic depth than a typical comedy.

Historical Background: The Man in the White Suit was one of the so-called Ealing comedies, made in the first decade following the end of World War II. Under the leadership of Sir Michael Balcon, Ealing Studios came into prominence during the late forties and early fifties with a series of droll comedies, many starring the talented and multifaceted Alec Guinness. Prominent among those comedies were Passport to Pimlico (1949), Whisky Galore! (1949), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953), and The Ladykillers (1955). The Man in the White Suit was directed by Alexander Mackendrick.

Mackendrick was born in Boston, MA in 1912 to Scottish parents who were only visiting in the United States. Mackendrick died in 1993. He studied at the School of Art in Glasgow and began his professional life as a commercial artist. He gained some experience as an animator for advertising films and joined the film industry in 1937, initially as a screenwriter. He began directing in 1938, first doing shorts and, then, documentaries during World War II. He directed his first feature film, Whisky Galore!, in 1949. For his next film, The Man in the White Suit (1951), Mackendrick also helped write the screenplay and shared an Oscar for it. His best known film was, perhaps, The Ladykillers (1955). After that, Mackendrick made a foray into Hollywood, where he directed The Sweet Smell of Success (1957), which has a bit of a cult following and depicts corruption among press agents and newspaper columnists.

The Story: Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) is an idealistic young scientist studying chemistry at Cambridge, while performing odd jobs in the textile mills in a nearby town. Stratton's dream is to produce a new polymer that can be woven into fabrics that will be durable and stain-resistant enough to last indefinitely. As the film opens, Stratton is secretly conducting his research in the laboratories at the factory owned by Michael Corland (Michael Gough). Corland needs an infusion of capital into his mill and he's not above trying to entice an investment out of his competitor, Alan Birnley (Cecil Parker), by wooing the man's good-natured daughter, Daphne (Joan Greenwood). Birnley turns down Corland's request, however, when he inspects Corland's operation and discovers that no one there can identify or explain the presence of Stratton's wacky apparatus, which bubbles and burps. When Corland later discovers that Stratton is responsible for the unauthorized contraption, he fires him immediately.

It's back to the employment office for Stratton and this time he lands a job in receiving at Birnley's mill, where he meets the friendly Bertha (Vida Hope). She takes a shine to Stratton, but he's too lost in his formulas and theorems to notice. Stratton delivers a new electron microscope to the laboratory at Birnley's and impresses the scientists there with his knowledge of the equipment. They ask him if he'll stay and help them out with it for a few weeks and he agrees – in exchange for use of a portion of a lab bench. So, now Sidney is back in business and soon his bubbling, gurgling apparatus is churning away. His plan is close to being spoiled, however, when Daphne comes by and recognizes both Sidney and his apparatus as the same one that cost Corland his loan. Daphne rushes off planning to lord her discovery over her father, but Stratton rushes after her, flings himself in front of her car, mounts the running board, and is thrown off as Daphne rounds a tight corner. Daphne stops to see if Sidney is okay. He takes the opportunity to wax poetic about the exciting (at least to him) theories underlying his polymer research, ignoring his own bumps and bruises. Daphne finds herself oddly attracted to his one-pointed idealism. She promises not to reveal his secret research.

A few days later, Stratton gets the breakthrough for which he's been hoping. In his excitement, he rushes over to the Birnley residence to tell Mr. Birnley about his super-polymer, but he can't get past the doorman. When he does finally sneak in, he gets into a kind of Marx brothers tussle with the doorman, attracting the attention of all the occupants of the house. Birnley initially has Sidney thrown out, but finally relents when Daphne pleads on behalf of Sidney and suggests that her father may be overlooking a huge opportunity. The next thing we know, Sidney has been set up in the Birnley laboratory with carte blanche for whatever he needs in the way of equipment and supplies. Hoskins (Henry Mollison), the lab manager, is relegated to a small office beside the lab because Stratton's experiments have a peculiar tendency to blow up. Hoskins's office has to be lined with sandbags and Hoskins himself dons a blast helmet. After a few weeks of nothing but new cracks in the walls, Birnley is about ready to shut down Stratton's work, but Stratton suddenly gets the needed breakthrough. A batch of the new polymer is successfully concocted and is soon being spun into threads and woven into fabric. The polymer is so strong that the pieces for the first suit, designed for Stratton himself, have to be cut with a welding torch.

Sidney is delighted that his idea has succeeded and Birnley is visualizing magnificent profits. Birnley, however, receives an unexpected visit from Sir John Kierlaw (Ernest Thesiger), a crotchety but influential old man with, apparently, a long history in the textile industry. Word has reached Kierlaw about the new polymer and he's livid. What will become of the textile industry if they can't sell new outfits each year. Meanwhile, Sydney, in his spiffy new stain-resistant, wear-resistant white suit, encounters Bertha and another laborer. They quickly realize that Stratton's new polymer could spell doom for their jobs. Soon, the workforce has gone on strike, demanding that the polymer not be further developed. Ironically, management is entirely in agreement, but they'll need to sign a contract with Stratton for all rights to his work. He's offered one-quarter million pounds and is about to sign, until he realizes that they intend to suppress the discovery. That leads to more Marx Brothers-like shenanigans and Stratton finally being locked into an upstairs bedroom.

The industrialists are now desperate. If money can't buy Stratton, well how about a dame? No sooner has that idea been floated than Daphne walks in asking about Stratton. Soon, she's offered £5000 if she can entice Stratton into accepting their deal. Even Corland pushes the idea, exposing the insincerity of his earlier professions of love for Daphne. Daphne agrees to try to corrupt Stratton, but with an ulterior motivation. She wants to discover if there is any genuine idealism left in the world. Stratton is flattered by her throaty, seductive advances but, in the end, will not be shaken from his scientific quest. Reassured, Daphne helps him escape. Stratton used a strand of his own polymer to repel down the outside of the house.

Soon, management and labor alike are in hot pursuit of the man with a dream that poses equal threat to all. Bertha locks him in a room, at one point, but Stratton manages to escape, with the aid of a compassionate little girl. He encounters a washerwoman who complains that she too will be out of work. Finally, he is cornered by a mob composed of both executives and workers. Suddenly, however, all notice that Stratton's suit is beginning to disintegrate. The polymer was not stable after all. Soon, poor Stratton is standing in his shirt and underwear, oblivious to the laughing crowd and thinking only of the failure of his idea. All are greatly relieved that the crisis has passed. The film ends, however, with Stratton skipping up the road, when he suddenly gets a brilliant idea about how he might overcome the instability problem.

Themes: Though primarily light comedy, The Man in the White Suit also deftly explores some weighty issues. The idea of "planned obsolescence" is more familiar, today, than it was in the fifties, but it is still one worth pondering. If cars lasted indefinitely, auto manufacturers would presumably have much less business. If tires didn't wear out, what would happen to Goodyear? For that matter, if there were no fires, what would become of firemen? If illness were truly eliminated, what work would doctors do? While those examples may all be in the category of theoretical only, the idea of cars operating without gasoline is less far-fetched. What would become of the oil companies if an energy-efficient vehicle were developed to run on hydrogen, along with a cost-effective method of hydrogen production and delivery to pumping stations. Some Americans (and I presume people in other Western countries) wonder if such technologies might not already be known but suppressed by automakers. I personally don't doubt that the almost unlimited human capacity for greed could motivate such conspiracies, but I also don't doubt the capacity of greed to induce one or more of the participants in such conspiracies to double-cross their partners. Suppression of new technologies can never succeed for more than a few years because, sooner or later, someone will find the profit potential irresistible.

The particular example of suppression of technology featured in The Man in the White Suit is not an especially credible one. The clothing industry is one of the most faddish ones, so people would continue to buy new clothes to be in vogue and to feel attractive. They might buy a tuxedo or black suit made from indestructible material, but not daily wear. Indestructible building materials for houses would probably have more real value and effect on the related industries.

Technological advances have the capacity to cut both ways in relation to society as a whole or its constituent groups. Technology sometimes makes our lives easier or more enjoyable. Other times, it might eliminate jobs or reduce wages in industries made more "efficient" by automation. A technological development might be good for the public but bad for workers in one particular industry. Young people adapt to new technologies faster than older people, who really might prefer to keep doing things the way they always have. Then there's the special risk of technologies relating to weapons of mass destruction. Scientists and engineers have the training to develop new technologies, but are no more capable than anyone else at assessing the likely societal impacts of their discoveries.

Production Values: The screenplay was adapted by Roger MacDougall, John Dighton, and Alexander Mackendrick from MacDougall's stage play called White Suit. This film has a nice mix of humor types, including physical humor, witty dialog, a great range of facial expressions by Guinness and others, and satire. The film's one problem is that it's not as funny as a good many other films. It's amusing enough for a four-star rating, what with its fine production values in general, but it just doesn't rise to the level of five-star comedy. Most of the comedy is droll and dry, which might be offered as an observation for any of the Ealing comedies.

This film could be described as science fiction, except that the emphasis is on the sociological impacts of the scientific discovery rather than the science per se. The film does provide enough in the way of scientific underpinnings to render the discovery sufficiently credible. Stratton is not so much a "mad-scientist" as an absent-minded goofy kind of geek. His gleaming white suit fits him to a tee, suggesting untainted idealism or a knight in shining armor. Add Guinness's impish little boy grin and you have as sympathetic a depiction of a scientist as you'll encounter in this kind of film. He's curious and so incorruptible that he reaffirms Daphne's faith in human nature. "Thank you, Sidney," she says, when he resists her seductive efforts. "If you would've said 'Yes' I'd have strangled you." Some things are more important than romance – like honor and integrity.

The black-and-white cinematography was fairly ordinary but the sound effects were sublime, especially in relation to Stratton's contraption. A pop song was released in Britain, at the time, based on the sound effects of Stratton's condenser and flasks.

Guinness is at his best and virtually carries the film on his back. He makes his character just plain adorable, with his innocence and pervasive curiosity. He somehow manages just the right facial expression for every situation. He had the least makeup I've ever seen him wear in a film and it was the first time I've ever been able to see him as the same man who played Obi-Wan Kenobi. You can see Guinness in such films as Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Lawrence of Arabia.

Guinness got some able support from several of the supporting actors. Joan Greenwood used her velvety voice and pretty face to give her flirtatious overtures genuine appeal. This was quite a contrast with her role in Kind Hearts and Coronets. She also later appeared in The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), The Detective (1954), Tom Jones (1963), and Little Dorrit (1988). Ernest Thesiger was a riot as the decrepit industrial kingpin. Sixteen years earlier, he had appeared in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). His other film appearances included Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), The Detective (1954), The Horse's Mouth (1958), and Sons and Lovers (1960). Cecil Parker was commendable as both narrator and Daphne's father. Parker had a successful career, appearing in such films as The Lady Vanishes (1938), Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), The Detective (1954), The Ladykillers (1955), Indiscreet (1958), and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).

Bottom-Line: The Anchor Bay DVD for this film provides an excellent transfer for both the audio and the video components. The extras include a theatrical trailer and an Alec Guinness biographical sketch. You can choose either English or French soundtracks, but there are no subtitle options. The running time is 85 minutes. I recommend this film mainly for Guinness fans and those wanting to broaden their exposure to the Ealing comedies. My personal recommendation for a first exposure to the Ealing comedies would be either The Lavender Hill Mob or The Ladykillers.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12