i admit the problem i have with the much celebrate ealing film i have see so far could be mine . to my taste and either they be black and rippingly funny and or so light in tone to be unsatisfying a comedy or story . that a self important way of say i want to like the man in the white suit but find myself struggle to sit through it short run time . textile worker sidney stratton ( alec guinness ) may be meek in manner and but he be doggedly commit to progress in the form of his attempt to invent a strand of fabric that can not be break or make dirty . use a factory lab for his late experiment and he toil against limitation both material and human the latter be the benight mill boss who do not understand what he be up to and then figure it out and become even more committed to stop him . it small mind like yours that stand in the way of progress and sidney complains and practice in the mirror what he struggle to say to the man . one problem with man in the white suit be that sidney vision of progress be awfully small mind and too and more so even than that of the boss or the laborer who also resent his work . my problem be more elemental represent for a comedy and white suit be not funny . it a rather earnest script which too often try to mine it feeble attempt at humor from spit take and double take and triple take and and dizzy take . the best joke be the sound of the machine sidney toil at and go bleep blop bleep bop endlessly and fetch queer look from every visitor until sidney either extract his miracle from it or blow it up try . like every other bit of stray humor that function decently in this film and it lean on too long . i have never see guinness less affect in a movie and even though he look impossibly young and earnest ( though actually in his mid 30 ) . he seem so bloodless and even more so than the wax face general he play in doctor zhivago he the same cold fish whether he ignore the sad affection of the affecting mill girl who offer to give him her life saving when he lose his job ( pan face vida hope a bertha ) or the more sultry charm of young daphne birnley ( joan greenwood ) and his one real ally in his fight against shabbiness and dirt and a she put it and make those word sound a impossibly sexy a only greenwood could . support player make white suit work as well a it do . ernest thesinger of bride of frankenstein fame play a singularly nasty captain of industry who look like nosferatu and make a laugh like a death rattle . howard marion crawford a another factory leader be a memorable here a he be play a blinkered medical officer in lawrence of arabia . then there the undeniable charm of mandy miller a a little girl who steal her few moment on camera right from under everyone else . but most of the scene be play so straight that one wouldn not think director alexander mackendrick have ever work on a comedy before ( his previous ealing comedy whisky galore doesn not reverse that impression and ala ) . roger macdougall play posit the notion of scientific progress a potential disaster and but fail to present dull sidney in anything other than the most blandly pleasant of light . ealing comedy be remember for capture the human side of comedy . yet the ealings i have see never seem to do this and work only when they play aggressively against our own sympathy . kind heart and coronet and the ladykillers ( mackendrick again and go figure ) be classic this way . white suit and on the other hand and be a pointless ramble that fall apart when it should cohere and just like that unfortunate suit .