The Man in the White Suit

The Man in the White Suit (1951)
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Actors: Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker

Synopsis: Sidney Stratton (Alex Guinness) is a young chemist infiltrating various textile mills in the north of England in the attempt to create a scientific marvel: an indestructible fibre. When he succeeds, the mill he works at is initially excited to have this radical new invention that will revolutionise the clothes industry, until it realises (along with the textile workers who understand the danger of the find) that this will soon put them all out of business if customers are hardly ever having to buy new clothes. Stratton alone fights to save the genius of his invention…

Review: The Man in the White Suit falls right in the middle of the golden age of Ealing Comedies and is an exemplar of everything that was great about the Ealing brand: it has that ingenious caper quality (they were almost like proto-Hollywood high concept vehicles); it’s exceptionally funny; and, most importantly, it is a subtly rich piece of social commentary too.

The sci-fi macguffin at the centre of the film’s narrative conceit (that Alex Guinness’ impishly driven scientist, Sidney Stratton, might be able to discover an indestructible fibre) is played for wickedly wry humour throughout. There’s almost something cartoonishly delicious about the way that Stratton’s interlinking, bulbous test tubes seem out of sync with the otherwise drab apparatus of the textile mills. Director Alexander Mackendrick also conceives of a lovely aural motif for Stratton’s chemical concoction (an exaggerated, sci-fi bubbling effect) which also stands as proxy for Stratton’s own fiercely individualistic, anti-establishment sensibility.

And it’s that notion of individualism and the imagination that strikes at the heart of what’s so clever about The Man in the White Suit’s parable. The plot appears, on the surface, to be a critique of postwar power structures – the industrialists, the capitalists, the middle and upper classes – after all, there’s a smidgeon of Priestley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’ about textile mills in fictional northern towns, industrialists called ‘Birnley’, and the striking working classes. While, to an extent, that is true, and Mackendrick does poke some fun at the paraphernalia and pomp of the wealthy (Stratton arrogantly puffing on a cigar at Mr Birnley’s behest before choking on it is one such dry example), this film has a more transcendent, apolitical message.

Remember that many of the Ealing alumni were on this dividing line between the establishment (most of them were well educated and certainly of, at least, middle class descent) and something less conformist (they were, after all, artists and storytellers). So the film reads best as a paean to individualism, dreamers and pioneers, and seems to advocate that, fundamentally, society functions best on an equilibrium between capital and labour – both of whom acknowledge they need the other and see Stratton’s outsider as their true enemy. The visual motif of Stratton as this anti-establishment figure is brilliantly realised with his white, seemingly indestructible suit (beautifully pictorialised in the film’s monochrome palette). And when the suit disintegrates literally around Stratton’s body, leaving him the proverbial ‘Emperor’ without any ‘clothes’, it is less a cause for celebration at his charlatan qualities, but a strangely sad scene full of pathos. Mackendrick’s ultimate partiality to Stratton and the concept of individuality and the imagination is then betrayed by not ending on Stratton’s declothing but on his inimitable walk away from the mill a few days later; he has been officially fired, but in the mischievous glint in Guinness’ eye we realise the indomitable dreamer is, in fact, off to continue his unending quest for perfection. (October 2018)