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Wednesday, September 8, 2021

THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (1951)

Darker than other Ealing Studio comedies of the post-war period (say WHISKEY GALORE/’49 or THE LAVENDER HILL MOB/’51), this novel satire of business, labor & science comes loaded with a bitter edge between the laughs as ‘mad’ inventor Alec Guinness creates a synthetic fibre that weaves into an indestructible, dirt-repellent fabric, a revolution for an antiquated British textile industry.  Naturally, everyone fights to get it, till they think thru the consequences.  This Textile Dr. Frankenstein could soon put them all out of business!  Yikes!  An equal opportunity offender, Alexander Mackendrick’s superbly wrought film takes no sides, it’s against everybody: management & union, factory owners & trade groups, research & development men, advisory boards and head-in-the-clouds chemical visionaries.  With the withering truth & justified exasperation of a present-day Ben Jonson or Jonathan Swift now aimed at the dismal prospects of post-war British social & industrial optimism.  (Did Thomas Hobbes have a sense of humor?)  And so deviously, you might enjoy the film without ever realizing you’ve been laughing at a father & fiancé willing to ‘pimp’ Joan Greenwood (indispensable) to keep the formula out of the news.  That union, management & owners would fight tooth-and-nail because they’re in agreement.   Or that Public Relations routinely lie to the press.  Really?  With exceptional layered work from cinematographer Douglas Slocombe and Benjamin Frankel’s devilishly witty, propulsive music score, all the technical elements rise to the top.  Few post-silent comedy classics produce more laughs; even fewer are more thought-provoking.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Great movies rarely get the great posters they deserve.  Not the case here.

DOUBLE-BILL: One last Ealing comedy for Mackendrick, with Guinness again in THE LADYKILLERS/’55.

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