The Man in the White Suit ***** (1951, Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Joan Greenwood, Ernest Thesiger, Michael Gough, Vida Hope) – Classic Movie Review 2819

Director Alexander Mackendrick’s joyous, typically quirky 1951 Ealing Studios comedy stars Alec Guinness as an inventor called Sidney Stratton who discovers a miracle cloth fabric that can never get dirty or wear out. That’s the good news but the bad news is that the garment manufacturers’ management and the unions are not at all amused and unite to oppose him.

Mackendrick’s spotless movie is securely based on clever satirical writing with a cutting edge and on the wonderful playing by Guinness (in an endearing portrayal of comic bewilderment) and by Cecil Parker and Joan Greenwood (as the mill boss Alan Birnley and his daughter Daphne).

Ernest Thesiger (as Sir John Kierlaw), Michael Gough (as Michael Corland) and Vida Hope (as Bertha) also stand out at the head of a long roster of Ealing’s finest players.

Mackendrick, Roger Macdougall and John Dighton’s witty, Oscar-nominated screenplay is based on Macdougall’s stage play. Typically for Ealing, and most effectively, it champions the individual and common man against authority, organised labour and the general rabble. Interesting this theme in British films of this era being both anti-management and anti-union, with their heroes like the lone cowboy in Westerns standing up to fight against all comers.

The movie was re-released in the UK in 1993 to renewed acclaim as one of Britain’s and Ealing’s finest comedies. Like the suit, the film pleases the public and wears well, and now, after its visit to the digital dry cleaners’, it is spotlessly restored too.

Also in the cast are Howard Marion Crawford, Miles Malleson, George Benson, Edie Martin, Duncan Lamont, Mandy Miller, Henry Mollison, Patric Doonan, Olaf Olsen, Colin Gordon, Joan Harben, Arthur Howard, Roddy Hughes, Judith Furse, Frank Atkinson, Billy Russell, John Rudling, Desmond Roberts, Stuart Latham, Brian Worth, Charlotte Mitchell, Ewan Roberts, Charles Saynor, Russell Waters, Charles Cullum, F B J Sharp, Scott Harold, Jack Howard and Jack McNaughton.

The sounds of Stratton’s experiment (described on the record label as ‘guggle glub guggle’) were set to music by Jack Parnell and released on the Parlabel as ‘The White Suit Samba’ with words by T.E.B. Clarke.

Alec Guinness and Cecil Parker re-united with Mackendrick for The Ladykillers in 1955. Mandy Miller re-united with Mackendrick for Mandy [Crash of Silence] in 1952.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2819

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