The Man In The White Suit Blu-ray Review

• 18th Nov 2012

Alexander Mackendrick was one of the best director’s in the Ealing stable and he made some of the studio’s most enduring films. They were usually concerned with the little man taking on big society. Today there is a lot of talk about David Cameron’s Britain and his Big Society. Perhaps more than any other series of films it was Ealing, and particularly the films of Alexander Macendrick that best of all broke this down to what this meant but, I would argue in a much more embracing and human way than some Tory legislation. This was, or so legend (and nostalgia) would tell us, a much less complicated time. His films had a strong political overtone without being overtly political but instead accessible as entertainment to a broad audience. This year sees the 100th anniversary of his birth and to celebrate there is a season of his films being shown at the NFT, as well as Studiocanal re-releasing the restored version of The Man in the White Suit (more on the restoration later) and a limited theatrical release. Mackendrick always considered himself an outsider. He was born in the United States to Scottish parents and as a boy he returned back to his parent’s homeland in Scotland. He made his breakthrough with Whiskey Galore! in 1949 and over the years he made five films for Ealing including The Ladykillers (1955) and really made little in the way of substantial films outside of Ealing other than the classic business corruption drama Sweet Smell of Success with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, which he made in Hollywood in 1957. In total, before retiring in 1967 he only made nine films plus a handful of others he wasn’t credited on. There is something Capraesque about Mackendrick’s Ealing, but made with a very English slant.

The story is set in a northern mill town where the textile industry is the focus of business. One of the scientists working at the mill is called Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) who is trying to secretly develop a special kind of fabric which never gets dirty, is self cleaning and never wears out. Hoping that his colleagues and bosses don’t believe he is crazy he is keeping his invention a secret until he has made his discovery. Eventually Sidney believes that he has found the formula. He takes it to the mill owners and under the belief that they will embrace his discovery. Sidney suddenly finds that the manufacturers and other industrialists want to silence him before the invention is leaked to the press. To add to his woes his fellow workers, Union folk also want to try and stop him. Capital and labour join up and try to stop this lone individual.

The casting, as usually with Ealing films is spot on. Guinness, as ever in these studio films is quirky, mildly eccentric and a loveable character with Cecil Parker as the mill owner and a wonderful supporting part from the ever sinister and camp Ernest Thesiger as another corrupt and twisted industrialist. Joan Greenwood as the boss’s daughter is the love interest. It is an inspired film that has now been released on dual format Bluray and DVD with the standard quality extras that have helped support the current bout of Ealing re-masterings. There is a good featurette that looks at the films production and its political considerations. Also included on the disc is a comparison between the pre and post re-mastering and as to which the viewer prefers is open to debate. The pre-restoration is how I remember first viewing the film while the restored version is very sharp and in clear focus but I must say that I miss the soft focus of the older version. I guess anyone wishing to have the old version can just hang on to their old video or DVD. Let us hope that the film is never remade or butchered in the same way that The Ladykillers was in 2004 with Tom Hanks playing Professor Marcus.

Chris Hick