Lo scandalo del vestito bianco

I can't say whether the post-WWII British comedies produced at the Ealing Studios are an acquired taste or not, but I am completely addicted, and The Man in the White Suit is one of the best. No need to go into the well-known plot about the threat posed to both the textile industry and the textile unions by an indestructible, dirt-resistant fiber. Suffice it to say that the slings and arrows suffered by the naively idealistic Sidney Stratton in pursuing his polymer vision make for a comedic delight. Many of the well-known faces from the world of British character actors - the nervous Cecil Parker, the suavely devious Michael Gough, and the bluntly ruthless Ernest Thesinger - put in wonderful performances. Guinness - as always and forever - is superb, and Joan Greenwood is delectable as Daphne (just the way she enunciates the word "Daddy", makes the entire movie worth seeing).

"Knudsen!!!!!!!"

When I learned of Sir Alec Guinness' death, this was the first of his many films I thought of re-seeing. What a wonderful droll commentary the film provides even after all these years. And Guinness helps to weave the charm into every frame. His eyes and face are as luminous as that white suit he wears. Both he and the film have to be considered lifetime favorites.

Alec Guinness, an interesting story, and some effective dry humor make this a witty and satisfying satirical comedy. Like a number of the Ealing comedies, the initial plot premise is interesting, yet it is really only a pretext for presenting material that affords some opportunities for subtly caustic commentary. In this case, the far-fetched invention by Guinness's character is used cleverly to point out the ways that various persons feel about science, change, and technology.

Guinness plays an innocent, even naive, character here, which is rather different from most of those he played in other Ealing features. There is a good assortment of supporting characters this time, and some of the minor roles feature some effective performances. Cecil Parker, Michael Gough, and Ernest Thesiger make a good trio of heavies, and Joan Greenwood works well as a character in the middle of things.

The ironic, understated tone of most of the humor keeps things low-key but effective. It's the kind of approach that is far more challenging than direct ridicule, and it takes disciplined film-makers to make something like this work. Not least among the movie's strengths is Guinness's own skill in making his character believable in addition to sympathetic.

While in some ways the comparison may be a stretch, there are some rather interesting parallels between "The Man in the White Suit" and the much more recent "Jurassic Park". The style and characters are much different (though "Jurassic Park" is not entirely without its own moments of dry humor), but in both cases an amazing - and entirely fictional - invention is shown to provoke all kinds of differing reactions, as others seek to exploit it, to close it down, or to control it. In both cases, the point is not whether the invention is valid, but rather the ways that everyone responds while barely understanding or appreciating the actual development itself.

While "The Man in the White Suit" is not one of the best-known Ealing features, it is another good one, with wit, solid characters and story, and an approach that combines style and substance.

"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.

In a funny, touching, brilliant way, this film examines the eternal debate over man's technology, his suppression of it, and the inevitable consequences of its effect on his fellow man.

A quiet classic.