Sidney Stratton, a brilliant young research chemist and former Cambridge scholarship recipient, has been dismissed from jobs at several textile mills in the north of England because of his demands for expensive facilities and his obsession with inventing an everlasting fibre. Whilst working as a labourer at the Birnley Mill, he accidentally becomes an unpaid researcher and invents an incredibly strong fibre which repels dirt and never wears out. From this fabric, a suit is made—which is brilliant white because it cannot absorb dye and slightly luminous because it includes radioactive elements. Stratton is lauded as a genius until both management and the trade unions realise the consequence of his invention; once consumers have purchased enough cloth, demand will drop precipitously and put the textile industry out of business. The managers try to trick and bribe Stratton into signing away the rights to his invention but he refuses. Managers and workers each try to shut him away, but he escapes. The climax sees Stratton running through the streets at night in his glowing white suit, pursued by both the managers and the employees. As the crowd advances, his suit begins to fall apart as the chemical structure of the fibre breaks down with time. The mob, realising the flaw in the process, rip pieces off his suit in triumph, until he is left standing in his underwear. Only Daphne Birnley, the mill-owner's daughter, and Bertha, a works labourer, have sympathy for his disappointment. The next day, Stratton is dismissed from his job. Departing, he consults his chemistry notes. A realisation hits and he exclaims, "I see!" With that he strides off, perhaps to try again elsewhere.
Cast
Alec Guinness as Sidney Stratton
Joan Greenwood as Daphne Birnley
Cecil Parker as Alan Birnley
Michael Gough as Michael Corland
Ernest Thesiger as Sir John Kierlaw
Howard Marion-Crawford as Cranford
Henry Mollison as Hoskins
Vida Hope as Bertha
Patric Doonan as Frank
Duncan Lamont as Harry
Harold Goodwin as Wilkins
Colin Gordon as Hill
Joan Harben as Miss Johnson
Arthur Howard as Roberts
Roddy Hughes as Green
Stuart Latham as Harrison
Miles Malleson as the Tailor
Edie Martin as Mrs. Watson
Mandy Miller as Gladdie
Charlotte Mitchell as Mill Girl
Olaf Olsen as Knudsen
Desmond Roberts as Mannering
Ewan Roberts as Fotheringay
John Rudling as Wilson
Charles Saynor as Pete
Russell Waters as Davidson
Brian Worth as King
George Benson as the Lodger
Frank Atkinson as the Baker
Charles Cullum as 1st Company Director
F.B.J. Sharp as 2nd Company Director
Scott Harold as Express Reporter
Jack Howarth as Receptionist at Corland Mill
Jack McNaughton as Taxi Driver
Judith Furse as Nurse Gamage
Billy Russell as Nightwatchman
Sound
Whenever Sidney Stratton’s apparatus is bubbling, or whenever he is thinking about his stainless fibre, the musical accompaniment to The Man in the White Suit plays a samba created from a series of recorded bubbles, gurgles, woofs, and squirts. These sounds were not made using traditional musical instruments but rather laboratory equipment. According to promotional material at the British Film Institute, London, the music was a collaboration of director Alexander Mackendrick and sound editor Mary Habberfield. The bubble sound was obtained by blowing through a glass tube into a viscous glycerin solution. The two drip sounds were obtained by pinging two different-sized pieces of brass and glass tubes against the palm of the hand. The drain sound was created by air blowing through a tube into water and then amplifying the bubble sound through a metal tube. After Habberfield captured each sound effect, she mixed them in different combinations by trial-and-error until she found the leitmotif that would accompany Sidney Stratton and his bubbling apparatus in the film.
