Popular reviews

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  Review by Matt J. 🇺🇦 ★★★★½ 2

  It's a simple story about a brilliant scientist (Guinness) who, while working in a textile factory, invents a 'perfect' fiber that cannot be soiled. The only problem is that nobody else seems to share his enthusiasm for his invention.

  This classic comedy is just as depressing as it is funny. The satire here is painfully bleak, due to its realistic premise. It seems like something could just as easily occur today, if it hasn't already. For instance, how many people would truly like to see an automobile get 500 miles-to-the-gallon? Similarly, how many industries would be all-too-happy to suppress a fully electric vehicle? One could conjure up countless other examples in all walks of life. Sad, but true.

  Old Ben Kenobi has rarely been better.

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★

  The joy of Ealing comedies is they're so often considered to be the domain of homely traditional English values, all quaint and innocuous. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, and the very best of Ealing's output were trenchant affairs that took an obvious delight in their scalpel like incisions into the underbelly beyond their seemingly cosy appearance.

  Alexander Mackendrick, American born and raised in Scotland, was perhaps more disposed than most in turning a critical almost outsider like surgically aloof eye to the Ealing ethos and, in Alec Guinness' wonderful turn as inventor Sidney Stratton, he explores beautifully what his biographer Philip Kemp claims was his favourite theme, that of a 'lethal innocence' in his protagonists. Guinness…

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  Review by Amy Hensarling ★★★ 4

  The Man in the White Suit is a peculiar film. Alexander Mackendrick of Sweet Smell of Success & The Ladykillers fame directs, but unfortunately for me, it’s far closer to the latter than the former. Alec Guinness does what he can with the role & the screenplay was nominated for an Oscar, but White Suit largely falls flat until the very, very end. Interesting ideas of industry/capitalism vs scientific innovation here, which I found more thought-provoking in theory than execution. Bit dull, bit too dry, bit too stereotypical British for my taste. Compelling enough final frame to bring it slightly above average.

  //

  PS: In June 2020, my friend Joel and I began what would become a longstanding tradition of monthly watchlists.…

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  Review by noir1946 ★★★★½ 2

  “They’ll never let your stuff on the market in a million years.”

  With the likelihood of civilization as we know it surviving seeming more dire every day—thanks U. S. Supreme Court—there’s nothing like seeking refuge in an Ealing comedy, and The Man in the White Suit is one of the best. Inventor Sidney Stratton also gives Alec Guinness one of his best roles. The part seems custom made for Guinness’s special brand of wide-eyed optimism. Although Sidney is a scientist, he is an artist as well, having a vision he is compelled to complete. Sidney is an innocent just trying to make the world a better place without regard for the consequences of his creation. He is a forerunner of…

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  Review by Mos Co ★★★

  Normally my Monday evening is taken up by quiz shows but now that Only Connect has finished they’ve moved Mastermind from half past seven to start at eight o’clock which means there’s an hour and a half between House of Games and Mastermind. So anyway, this film fitted nicely into that available time.
  Just remembered there’s football starting at eight tonight so Mastermind and University Challenge might need to get parked to watch on catch up.
  Anyway again, this movie was cool.

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  Review by Sophie Farrell ★★★★

  There are many great British film institutions, such as the James Bond franchise and the Carry On comedies. However, if there is one British institution that is amongst the most highly revered, it is the Ealing comedies. The Ealing comedies are one of my biggest film blind spots and I've been meaning to check them out for ages. Imagine my delight when I came across The Man in the White Suit, one of the most popular Ealing comedies, on BBC iplayer. The Man in the White Suit is a very highly regarded film, even being included on the British Film Institute's list of the 100 best British films of the 20th century. It is also a film that I have…

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  Review by Graham Williamson ★★★★★ 2

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  To many Britons the comedies made at Ealing studios between Sir Michael Balcon's appointment as studio head in 1938 through to the mid-50s are as warming and reassuring as a mug of hot cocoa, a status which is both testament to their massive cultural impact and also slightly unfair. Balcon's remit was never about cosiness or nostalgia - under his rule, Ealing became an outlier in British cinema history for its near-total exclusion of period drama in favour of subjects which reflected the current reality of British life and how it was changing.

  One of the most talented of Balcon's school of directors was Alexander Mackendrick, whose films balanced neatly between a desire to satirise the changing face of Britain…

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  Review by RetroHound ★★★½

  Pretty funny story of a man who invents a cloth that won't get dirty or stain or wear out.

  Alec Guinness works in a textile mill, but sneaks into the lab and tries to run his experiments. When he does get it to work, the owner of the factory is happy, but soon word gets out and everyone from other mill owners to the workers, to those who wash clothes for a living turn against him. Oh, the cloth is also glows somewhat, and it's hard running from a mob when your white suit is glowing.

  I wasn't too sure about these Ealing comedies, as the first few just weren't my taste, but this and Our Man in Havana are both pretty good.

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  Review by mosquitodragon ★★★½ 6

  In which Alex Guinness invents a thread which is completely impervious to wear, tear and even dirt. Imagine clothes which never need to be washed, let alone replaced! Sounds great... or is it...?

  There's an agreeable ambiguity regarding exactly what lesson we are meant to learn from this little fable. Stratton's (Guinness) invention will free housewives the world over from the drudgery of laundry (yes, housewives, this is 1951, folks), and they will never have to scrimp and save to buy clothing ever again! That's not much good for the textiles industry after all, is it? And OK, maybe we don't care about the owners of that huge mass of industrial capital, but what about the thousands upon thousands of…

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  Review by Richard ★★★★ 2

  The merry bleep-blooping of Sidney Stratton’s chemical process to construct his miracle fabric, which repels dirt and never wears out, is how I imagine all science sounds. There is no obvious reason why the process should sound like this, or why it should explode so violently and so often, but I like to think that Stratton was embezzling all that money to create a needlessly bleep-bloopy, exploding monstrosity simply because that is how science should be, not because it has to be.

  The Man in the White Suit is a film about hubris and the blinkered pursuit of a scientific vision without a care for the consequences. This would have resonated at the dawn of the nuclear age in 1951,…

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  Review by Paul D ★★★★

  Sidney Stratton is a scientist with a dream, to make an indestructible synthetic fibre. The trouble is no one will employ him and fund his slightly explosive experiments any longer, so he has to make do with manual jobs in cotton mills and sneaking into the labs where he goes unnoticed until he finally makes his breakthrough.

  For me, there is a bitterness and harshness to The Man in the White Suit which sets it apart from the other Ealing Comedies. Even though there are other films which the studio made at that time such as Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers which involve death and outright murder, this one feels quite different.

  It actually puts me in mind…

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  Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸 ★★★★

  Steve's Priority Watchlist Project

  Ealing Studios were the best thing that this awful country was ever responsible for.

  Their films just had everything. They were an easy, comfortable watch that also have enough smarts if you're prepared to dig below the surface. They were sharp with commentary but also accessible with their humour. They weren't afraid to play more dramatically when a moment demanded it but always knew when to throttle back before things became maudlin.

  The Man in the White Suit touches on all of the above, just like all of their best or better films did. It's not as funny as some of their stuff but it's in constant motion and its notes on the exploitation of labour…