Prismark10 In this Ealing comedy, Alec Guinness plays an eccentric even a naive chemist who develops surreptitiously a fabric that stays clean and does not wear out.The result, textile firms are hostile to his invention because the new product would put them out of business, so they want to buy his invention and suppress it. The workers are hostile because it will put them out of jobs. If clothes last forever, then more people and looms are not needed to make it.Through it all, Guinness carries on bemused as to why are so many people are upset, displaying little knowledge of the economic realities of life.The film is a political and social satire, although it may had once been sharp but has blunted over time, it still has relevance even now. We have cars these days that are more powerful, has more gadgets and controls and more reliable than before with extra long warranties. This means we change cars less often to the chagrin of automobile makers but its good for the consumer.However here the central concept is hard to take. The brilliant white suit looks unfashionable (and people tend to change clothes because fashion changes so often) and its hard to side with Guinness whose character appears to be cold, naive, odd, endearing but stupid as well. How he thinks the world would fall at its feet with the new invention is hard to fathom. Also there has been no proper product testing, very much like the white suit you can sense it will unravel.

pruthvishrathod This film is a piece of sheer comical brilliance. Not just comedy I loved but the message it delivers is also magnificent. Through its comical nature somehow it conveys the similar thing which Ayn Rand did in her novels. About Guinness, I just cannot get enough of him. Every time I watch him I tend praise him more than the previous time. Here too he brilliantly plays the role of a genius inventor living in silence. His latest invention is going to shake the whole world. But he is not allowed to do his experiments properly. Even after he is succeeded, the industrialists and other classes oppose to enclose his invention. Film's first half is full of funny scenes but in second half it simply nails the point. It creates a brilliant satire of whole Industrial order. Final portion of the movie in which, Alec Guinness almost run like a fugitive is too brilliant. This is one of the best film of Ealing comedy era. It is too realistic & convincing and yet hilariously funny. Ending really shook me up. Joan Greenwood looked stunning. Her character was honest & full of grace. Cecil Parker & other guys were also very funny. But Alec Guinness deserves the highest respect for this. Must watch comedy..

David Traversa I couldn't believe the perfection of this movie. It's so tightly made that nothing is superfluous in its entire run. 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. I didn't find Alec Guinness role particularly funny but I found the Elderly Industry Boss (Ernest Thesiger from legendary "The Bride of Frankestein") simply a scream. Every scene he's in, he steals it completely, nobody else exists on the screen. What an actor! Joan Greenwood was the kind of personality that we only see once in a century. Her voice and delivery are something impossible to duplicate and thoroughly unique. The only wrong thing with her in this movie was her hairdo. Did she comb it herself without looking in a mirror before the first day of shooting and never again till they were through filming? Did she get a hairdressing student rejected by the beauty school? Her hairdo is too dreary to be unintentional. A fantastic movie, entertaining from beginning to end, with a very clever twist impossible to predict and resolved precisely at the right moment and by a perfectly acceptable chemical explanation. A film that only the British could have made with their sensational Black Humor that nobody else can imitate. You'll find the look of this movie quite old fashioned, but having been made in 1951 we cannot expect anything different right? forget about its looks, sit down, watch it and you'll be thrilled to have discovered this precious jewel of a film.

secondtake The Man in the White Suit (1951)A dry, wry, hilarious take on the idea that companies don't make their products too good because otherwise they'd never wear out. And you'd never need to buy more.Alec Guinness is the star here, a quirky scientist amidst lots of wonderfully quirky scientists all working on new fabrics and fibers. Guinness a kind of early Peter Sellers, but far more buttoned up. He plays the slightly bumbling everyman who has a gift for genius at the right times, and in this case it's a Cambridge drop out names Sydney Stratton who discovers a superfiber that can be used to make superfabric. The crisis of making clothes that don't wear out, and don't get dirty, never dawns on the scientist, but the workers, and capitalist leaders, and the poor old laundrywoman understand immediately what it means for them.Hence the comedy. It's a "delightful" comedy filled with easygoing laughs and general high spirits, but it really works in its innocence. The not-so-subtle commentary about social economics is part of the fun, and is especially British in its feel, though the ideas of work committees capitalist greed are not foreign to the rest of us. It might be almost odd to notice this, but the filming--the photography and lighting--is especially excellent. It's quite a beautiful black and white film.There are some familiar character actors here for those who have seen other post-War British films, none of whose names I know, though Joan Greenwood, playing the semi-romantic female lead, seems worth paying attention to for her strong presence. Director Alexander Mackendrick has a handful of good films to his credit, and you can only wish he had made more ("The Sweet Smell of Success" is his most famous). This is Guinness's movie, though, and by the final scenes of him running through the dark streets in his glowing white suit, well, that's just terrific old-school comedy, warm and funny and fast.