If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. There are a lot of good intentions powering Sean Foley's adaptation of the Ealing comedy classic The Man in the White Suit towards the stage. Please enable Cookies and reload the page. An altruistic chemist invents a fabric which resists wear and stain as a boon to humanity, but big business and labor realize it must be suppressed for economic reasons. Such innocent idealism: so subtle, sad and perfect! Even though I am a die hard Star Wars fan, this began my love of Alec Guinness. The dialogs are perfect, witty, sharp, funny; the main idea for the script is superb (to invent a product that defies obsolescence is a No-No in contemporary industry) and the actors are absolute perfection thanks to their own art plus a firm and secure direction by Alexander Mackendrick. good audio and picture. 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. The unassuming, nebbishy inventor Sidney Stratton creates a miraculous fabric that will never be dirty or worn out. "I know exactly where I went wrong", he keeps saying. For me this is Ealing Studio's most perfect film - as fresh and relevant half a century later as it was the day it was released. "Man in the White Suit" is perhaps, along with "Kind Hearts and Coronets," the pinnacle of the Ealing film. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. SYNOPSIS: “The unassuming, nebbishy inventor Sidney Stratton creates a miraculous fabric that will never be dirty or worn out. So I find it interesting that people here have compared it to Jurassic Park; me, I compare it to The Fountainhead. | The Man in the White Suit is a practically perfect movie. However, the two groups do not trust each other. 20 out of 22 found this helpful. Over the years, I've seen this film many times on PBS. | The Man in the White Suit The plot is a variation of an old theme, but it comes out with a nice fresh coat of paint. The Man in the White Suit, Wyndham's Theatre review - sparks but no combustion in this chemistry farce An Ealing comedy film becomes an intermittently entertaining play by Marianka Swain Wednesday, 09 October 2019 He went on to describe how he'd been given a wire rope to climb down and, assured it was safe, narrowly avoided serious injury when it suddenly snapped mid-descent. In my mind the best of the Ealing comedies and one of my favourite films of all time. Contains *spoilers* - also, my quotes may not be exact. 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. Clearly he can make a fortune selling clothes made of the material, but may cause a crisis in the process. 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. 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). The Man in the White Suit is one of those delightful comedies that Ealing studies made so well in the 40's and 50's. However, things are not that simple as the cloth will threaten the way of life of many people, including cloth manufacturers, the cloth mill's workforces, and even an old lady that does her washing every week. The owners of the textile mills wants to suppress this new invention because it will mean the end of their businesses. Derek Winnert deals out a rare 5/5 star review, calling the film “spotless”, while Glenn Erickson at DVD Savant crowns it a “practically perfect movie”. I do consider myself a capitalist, but man does this film push me away from some of it. When I learned of Sir Alec Guinness' death, this was the first of his many films I thought of re-seeing. i recall getting a yellow suit coat and looking at myself in a 3 way view mirror, like the actor in the movie. Your IP: 116.202.218.152 See this one! With Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker, Michael Gough. He lives in poverty and obscurity, he takes dead-end jobs that barely pay the rent, all so that he can complete his research and present the weary post-WWII world with a miracle: A fabric that will never get dirty, wrinkle, or wear out. • 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 theme of workers v. management (with lots of talk of unions and rights) perhaps dates the film a bit now as it's no longer a subject discussed all that much but that doesn't stop "White Suit" from being a show stopping classic. Cloudflare Ray ID: 64176e42ad1a2c52 Directed by Alexander Mackendrick. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing (Screenplay) for Roger MacDougall, John Dighton and Alexander Mackendrick (who was a cousin of Roger MacDougall). The Internet Movie Data Base, of course, has substantial material on "The Man in the White Suit," which can be accessed by clicking here. The Man in the White Suit is an intelligent, thought-provoking and witty comedy with a moral. | Chemist Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) is at a crossroads in his career. He's absolutely heroic when he refuses to take the big money and the hot woman in return for suppressing his invention. Alec Guinness is a genius who is beyond geekiness, he's obsessive. It's so tightly made that nothing is superfluous in its entire run. The Man in the White Suit is a damning portrayal of the total control of industrial capitalism and the demons of crushing technological growth to advance the well being of the people. Although most Americans have little knowledge of his work other than Star Wars, Alec Guinness produced an amazing body of work--particularly in the 1940s-1950s--ranging from dramas to quirky comedies. This Alec Guinness starrer is a very good fun political satire of corporate industry, and a light eccentric character study as well. Sidney Stratton is, in a way, a British version of Ayn Rand's Howard Roark (a parody of a parody, maybe). After being fired from several textile mills, he finally perfects his magic formula at Birnley Mill with the support of the mill-owner's daughter, Daphne. "They were always trying to get me killed," Alec Guinness once wrote of The Man In the White Suit's technicians. It's a very sophisticated and subtle comedy/farce that takes a dig at a number of the cultural institutions that characterise northern England. 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. Have you ever seen a perfect movie? (This is what was known as British understatement.). Directed by: Alexander Mackendrick. User Ratings He is equally reckless but much more endearing than his American counterpart. If I'd been expecting it to be a comedy, I might have been disappointed with the film, but, going in with no expectations, I found it to be enjoyable and engaging. 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. I was less concerned with satire of capital or labor, and more into the basic story of a man fighting for his invention. While I suspect some modern viewers may initially find it obscure, I doubt many would fail to be charmed by the expert way the plot, the themes and characters are languidly relayed during the film's course. For many years it was mainly known as the movie with the funny lab apparatus that makes cute cartoon noises. Alec Guinness plays Sidney Stratton deadpan in the role of the lone, mad scientist of … mostly because I wanted to hear Benjamin Frankel's title music again. Film Review: The Man In The White Suit (1951) Nigel Honeybone 12/30/2015 Uncategorized. An all-time classic, and I hope no one ever tries to remake it! The plot of this one follows a man that invents a cloth that neither gets dirty nor breaks. Satirical genius from the house of Ealing. Awards Performance & security by Cloudflare. THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT, like I'M ALL RIGHT JACK, takes a dim view of both labor and capital. Much of The Man in the White Suit ’s charm resides in how gradually and effortlessly we discover this Promethean protagonist’s crippling myopia. It's a droll comedy equally as funny as the rest of the Ealing films, yet it effortlessly carries some profound themes about progress versus commerce and labor - subjects rarely covered in films, and almost never covered well. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Alec Guinness, an interesting story, and some effective dry humor make this a witty and satisfying satirical comedy. The Man in the White Suite tells the story of Sidney Stratton, a genius caught in a world of "common people" who are unwilling to let his talents blossom. The audio from Sidney’s goofy science project glassware rig was made into a novelty record called The White Suit Samba. The Man in the White Suit seems to me to be partially a satire on Ayn Rand's the Fountainhead. The Man in the White Suit Reviews A sharp satirical comedy about the social contradictions of technology, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT offers a tour de force by … This is one of my favorite movies of all time! "They thought actors got in the way of things." Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. Sidney Stratton is a man with a chemical obsession - to invent an indestructible synthetic fabric. Not so much firing on every cylinder as misfiring on them, this stage version of the 1951 Ealing comedy film The Man in the White Suit is like the intrepid inventor Sidney Stratton's early experiments in the show: there's always a missing ingredient and they don't quite work, leading to regular explosions. This is science fiction in its purest form and droll comedy as well. But I was surprised to see people referring to it as a comedy. I recommend this movie, basically, to anyone that is a fan of movies. this transfer is very good! It was amusing at times, but really, it wasn't very funny at all. But rather like its hero Stanley's experiments to invent an indestructible fabric that never needs washing, it blows up in everyone's face, leaving a lot of fine actors, including its star Stephen Mangan, lying wounded in the process. I highly recommend it. 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. The incomparably droll The Man in the White Suit is a practically perfect comedy. And Guinness helps to weave the charm into every frame. Stephen Mangan ("Episodes") leads the cast of this enervating stage adaptation of the 1950s film. Perfect British mad-cap mad-scientist spoof, with glorious photography, Terrific And Satirical Ealing Studios Drama Of A Hopeless Dreamer. Once more, Ealing delivers with a deceptively slight, wonderful film. It is this distrust which drives the hysterical second half of the film. A classic comedy from Britain's greatly-missed Ealing Studios, The Man in the White Suit (1951) is that rarest of breeds, a successful genre hybrid of seemingly incompatible forms: a satire rooted in a science fiction premise. Alec Guinness plays Sidney Stratton deadpan in the role of the lone, mad scientist of the British clothing industry. 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. A young research scientist invents a cloth that is everlasting and dirt resisting. The workers want to suppress this new invention becuase it will mean the end of their jobs. Not to mention Alec Guinness and Joan Greenwood, not character players as such but charming, charismatic leads. His lavishly varied set here matches the 1951 film scene-for-scene in Lancashire locations down the pub, up the mill or on the open road. While having lunch with Parker and Parker's daughter (Joan Greenwood), Gough gets a message regarding some problems about the lab's unexpectedly large budget problems. It's possible to miss what a wonderful film "The Man in the White Suit" is because it jumps between so many different things, and doesn't necessarily finish any of them. He reads the huge expenditures (due to Guinness's experiments), and chokes on his coffee. Ealing Comedy is a bit slow, but very sharp. The Man in the White Suit review. • External Reviews The Man in the White Suit review – Wyndham’s Theatre Based on the 1951 Ealing comedy film, this stage adaptation of The Man in the White Suit stars Stephen Mangan as Sidney Stratton, a Cambridge-educated chemist who, while working at a textile mill, develops a fabric that can’t be stained and never wears out. His eyes and face are as luminous as that white suit he wears. I enjoyed this film. A man who's less interested in monetary gain from his invention than he is in seeing it come to fruition and be put into production. It never fails to shock me. Sidney Stratton develops a revolutionary new fibre that will, in theory, never wear out and never get dirty. Rated the #20 best film of 1951, and #2527 in the greatest all-time movies (according to RYM users). Alec Guinness is a scientific genius - but an eccentric one (he has never gotten his university degree due to an...err...accident in a college laboratory). It is romantic here, political here, and the light science fiction of a "Twilight Zone" episode here. The Man in the White Suit. When the film begins he is in Michael Gough's company, and Gough (in a memorable moment) is trying to impress his would-be father-in-law (Cecil Parker) by showing him the ship-shape firm he runs. e-mail; The Man in the White Suit is a film about scientific advances, and the way that they don't always help; as the old woman says at one point in the movie, "Why cant you scientists just leave things alone?". Shots that would be considered absolutely essential to most modern comedies are deliberately left out. An unassuming, subtle and lean film, "The Man in the White Suit" is yet another breath of fresh air in filmic format from Ealing studios. However, neither the management nor the trade unions seem very welcoming towards his achievement ... One of the things that makes this Ealing comedy so outrageously funny is the clever editing. The Man in the White Suit seems to me to be partially a satire on Ayn Rand's the Fountainhead. In this aspect the movie has a resemblance with The Fountainhead on which I also commented. Genres: Comedy, Satire, Science Fiction. I couldn't believe the perfection of this movie. Philip French's classic DVD DVD and video reviews The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick, 1951, Studiocanal, U) Alec Guinness and Joan Greenwood lead … i saw it in my hometown theater in 1951 when it first come out. The movie is like a who's who of 50s British character stars: Cecil Parker, Michael Gough, Miles Malleson, Duncan Lamont, and particularly Ernest Thesiger, great as the dessicated old giant of the textile mills. It is a fantastic satire of industrial society. Metacritic Reviews. Maybe it was because, as an engineer, I identified with the protagonist. One of the classic comedies of British cinema, with Guiness at the top of his form as the nutty inventor in search of a cloth which will never wear out. Both he and the film have to be considered lifetime favorites. Of course, when he tries to start production not only do the captains of industry realize that it'll put them out of business, so do the unions. The comedy isn't always obvious, and it doesn't always work, but the film is not meant to be a film that provokes belly laughs, so that is forgivable. ‘Man in the White Suit’ Review: Stage Comedy Stars Stephen Mangan – Variety 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. I can't believe such an old film could be so subversive, cynical and anti-capitalist. He manages to push himself into various industrial labs in the textile industry. The Man In The White Suit is a 1951 British satirical science fiction comedy film made by Ealing Studios. The Man in the White Suit was digitally restored in 2012 to mark Scottish director Alexander Mackendrick’s centenary, when the film formed part of a BFI retrospective. Starring: Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker, Alec Guinness. It stars Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood and Cecil Parker and was directed by Alexander Mackendrick. Nobody will ever have to do laundry, iron, or spend for new clothes ever again. 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. Chaos ensues, to say the least. | I ended up sitting through about the first half hour, entranced by how wonderfully assured the direction, writing, and performances are. I particularly love his comedies, as they are so well-done and seem so natural and real on the screen--far different from the usual fare from Hollywood. Adapted by Roger MacDougall from his play, with John Dighton and the film's director, Alexander Mackendrick, the film is both witty and wise. Stratton is on a mission to create a … FAQ However, by and large, modern critics are very fond of The Man in the White Suit, as exemplified by Rotten Tomatoes’ 100/100 Fresh rating. I guess 'cause I'm an American and we seem to have had rather strict codes about such things here. This film ranks 13th in Carter B. Horsley's list of the 500 Best Sound Films. The Man in the White Suit review – Stephen Mangan reinvents Ealing boffin. I've had this movie on tape for years and started watching it again this morning (while waiting for my laundry --- how ironic!) Reviews Reviewer: ... thanks for sharing this film. What a wonderful droll commentary the film provides even after all these years. Of course, this is a huge breakthrough in the world of textiles. Very well written, even better direction and uniformly spot-on performances make this one of the great British films of the 1950s. 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