The Man In The White Suit

The Man In The White Suit is a 1951 film from Ealing Studios that takes a gimlet eye at how the marketplace dictates how we live. It is drolly funny, but also a bit sad in its conclusions. It is also the only film I know of that is about the chemical properties of textiles.

Alec Guinness is a meek chemist who takes menial jobs at textile mills to work on his project--namely, a fiber that is indestructible and impervious to dirt. He ends up working at a company run by Cecil Parker, who has a daughter (Jane Greenwood), who believes in Guinness and his idea.

When Guinness is finally successful, Parker is ready to reap the benefits, but his rival (Michael Gough) points out that the fiber would crash the economy. After every person had the clothes they needed they wouldn't buy anymore. All the mills would shut down. Even washer women would go out of business, as the clothes would never get clean. So the industrialists, along with an ancient peer (Ernest Thesinger) contrive to stop Guinness, who has put on a white suit of his material.

It has always been rumored that companies suppress ideas that would benefit the public but would hurt business, such as cures for certain diseases. And clothes that never wear out or get dirty would be great to have. But I have to admit there is a point to never having such a thing hit the market. Guinness, rightly so I think, doesn't accept this, and leads everyone on chase through the streets, but his glowing white suit (it has a touch of radium in it, so maybe it would given everyone cancer, anyway) gives him away.

The film was directed by Alexander Mackendrick, who also made The Ladykillers and The Sweet Smell Of Success, which is a pretty good trifecta for one decade.