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The Man in the White Suit (1951)

A review by Damian Cannon.
Copyright © Movie Reviews UK 1997
A gentle comedy involving an idealistic inventor and the forces arraigned against him, this is a typically engaging Ealing production. Set in an anonymous Northern town, the tall chimneys of the textile factories overshadow both the cramped terraces and their inhabitants. Above this stride the factory owners, nominally in competition but in reality they work in concord. For example, Michael Corland (Michael Gough) is happy to show his competitor Alan Bimley (Cecil Parker) around the factory because he wants to both borrow some money and marry his daughter, Daphne (Joan Greenwood). However, the visit is disastrously diverted when Bimley notices some intriguing apparatus in the laboratory, which is happily puffing a tune, and enquires as to its purpose. Surprisingly no one knows anything about it, until Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) owns up to the experiment. Since he's just a lowly worker Sidney is sent packing. Interestingly, Sidney was actually a top student at Cambridge and is only taking these menial jobs in order to access the textile labs, all in pursuit of his dream.

In a stroke of fate Sidney ends up at Bimley's factory, where he does manual work and strikes up a relationship with militant Bertha (Vida Hope). Once again his characteristic experiment has appeared in the lab, although this time Daphne recognises Sidney and grabs at the chance to humiliate Daddy with her discovery. Luckily Sidney manages to stop her and launches into an intricate explanation of his work, trying to persuade her not to give his secret away. Daphne likes him, and his pure enthusiasm for research, and keeps quiet. Sure enough, a few days later Sidney gets his big breakthrough. Overwhelmed by excitement Sidney tries to get to Bimley and explain his discovery - a material that is indestructible, dirt-proof and easy to make. Confronted by such a madman, Bimley throws him out and wonders how such an impostor could have cost him so much money. Daphne won't have any of this though and persuades Bimley to change his mind, installing Sidney in his own lab with a blank check.

Sidney is as happy as a clam, behaving like the eccentric scientist and manufacturing huge explosions. The weeks pass with nothing to show for Bimley's money but a lot of ceiling cracks and rising impatience. Finally, Bimley is all set to shut down the lab when Sidney miraculously solves his problems. A batch of material is made and tested, proving to be just as tough and resistant as Sidney had predicted. Bimley is exultant over the vast fortune that he will gather producing wonder garments and is especially taken with the demonstration suit made for Sidney. Pure white, like shining armour, the suit shrugs off dirt and stands out like a searchlight. However, there is an obvious problem. If this material lasts forever then how will the textile mills make money, and what will happen to the workers jobs? In a twisted marriage the owners and the workers join together to combat this threat, with an innocent and naive Sidney in the middle.

A very entertaining comedy, The Man in the White Suit manages to pass some extremely perceptive comments on the worker-manager relationship under this sugar coating. The story is quite tight, with Guinness giving a superb performance as the dedicated, but hysterical, inventor. However, in contrast with films of the modern era, the two love interest story-threads are hardly developed, with few scenes indicating much of a relationship (it's possible to read between the lines though, adding background which isn't present in the script). This does tend to date the story, even though the evil capitalistic ways of the bosses are relevant today (perhaps even more so). Despite this, the movie is very easy to watch and genuinely enjoyable. How nice to have a story which ends on an up-beat but unsentimental note.

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