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Rating:  - The Man in the White Suit
One of the snappier satires to emerge from Britain's Ealing Studios in the 1950s, Mackendrick's wry, wonderful "White Suit" is built around the expressive comic performance of Guinness, playing a dreamy, obsessive chemist without the means (or the elite credentials) to fund his pet project. Greenwood, always a fine mix of dotty and genteel, is a lovely, airy presence as Sidney's champion, and the cast of eccentric Ealing character actors (like wheezing elder Ernest Thesiger) is top notch as well. Mackendrick slyly incorporates a bit of political commentary into this seemingly frivolous farce, poking fun at the machinations of industrial tycoons and union activists alike. Buoyant and funny, this "White Suit" wears exceedingly well.
Rating:  - Capital and Labor are together on this one.
This is a fantastic, allegorical Ealing Studios "comedy." I put quotes on comedy because to me this is more of a dramatic film or maybe an ironic comedy, one particularly suspenseful at times.
Alec Guiness is terrific as usual as Sidney Stratton, a rogue scientist who goes from research lab to research lab at local textile mills, building and testing his experiments until he gets found out and fired. Eventually, after a great scene-one of several-in which Stratton's passion and determination prove both volatile and destructive, not to mention frightening (to the genteel prim English manner), he is given a chance.
Though not immediately successful, his chemistry proves exactly what he desired, a fabric that repels water and dirt, and will never wear down. Though it does illuminate at night, a nuclear allusion that elevates the allegorical nature of the film. To read into this a picture of a unconscionable maverick works, especially considering this was made just six years after Horoshima and Nagasaki.
But in this day and age I also sympathized with Stratton's determination to revolutionize. Representing progress his invention is a threat to the status quo, and the elite, whose authority partly rests upon the assumption of a demand for what they produce. But not only does capital fear him, labor worries for their own existence. A fabric that never breaks down means no jobs.
This dynamic is present today in myriad forms. Whether in our own class system, or industry, progress is begrudged even while it is celebrated. A reformation of paraigm means instability. But would we have more electric/alternative fuel cars, greater solar and wind generation, or more advanced medicines if those who rule such fields didn't seek to maintain their own status as much as they support progress?
A rogue throughout, Sidney Stratton is so myopic to his work that it's effects never exist to him. Such tenacity and fire makes for brilliance as well as destruction. Rock musicians who burn bright but flame out early come to mind. The way of the world must be progress, but progress with a conscience.
Rating: - Comedy, with a very contemporary conundrum embedded
Alec Guiness plays a brilliant and idealistic, albeit rogue, chemist, who dreams of, and strives to, create the ultimate fabric, that will be indestructible and unsoilable. He keeps getting jobs in research departments at textile mills, and conducts his experiments in little niches or side-rooms, always moving toward perfecting that perfect fabric. Havoc ensues when he succeeds, as everyone panics over what this synthetic fabric will do to the textile industry. Guiness never considered that aspect, and struggles to grasp the implications and ramifications, as weighed against attaining his dream.
I will give away no more of the plot. Guiness is excellent, and everyone plays their parts very well. The question raised by this film is an intriguing one. What would happen to commerce if the perfect fabric were to be invented? Or a car that doesn't wear out? If healthcare could cure everything? Is there a lot of planned obsolscence in our world, to protect jobs and incomes and free enterprise and capitalism? Hmmmm.
A very enjoyable film, with a thought-provoking aspect.
Rating: - Great Ealing black comedy on industry & technology
Yet another madcap Ealing comedy starring Alec Guinness as a scientist who invents a fabric that won't soil or wear out. Realizing that such a fabric would spell ruin for the whole textile industry, the company wants Guinness to sign over the invention to them so they can suppress it. He, of course, wants it known to the whole world: it's his ticket to fame.
Quite a tug-of-war develops between Guinness and the government henchmen involving chases, bribery, kidnapping, and other lunacies. But it all comes to naught when the lasting qualities of the fabric prove to be defective. Guinness is wonderful and the script is taut and hilarious. It's a neat little black comedy on industrialism vs. the entrepeneur. From that devilish smile on Guinness's face at the end, it looks like the battle goes on. Terrific fun; definitely worth a watch.
Rating: - Add-on to review below
Just a note--I can't find as anyone's caught this. The soundtrack for this film is by Benjamin Frankel, a serious British composer whose symphonies are highly regarded, and is one of the best film scores Ive encountered in some time. In fact I'm surprised it isn't better known as it approaches the quality Sir William Walton reached in his Shakespeare scores for Olivier. I'd buy this DVD just for the music.
Otherwise this is an absolutely wonderful flick and, as an exercise in humorous cynicism about how the modern world operates I'd double-bill it with Wilder's absurdly under-rated "One, Two, Three."
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