the man in the white suit and like im all right jack and take a dim view of both labor and capital . alec guinness be a scientific genius but an eccentric one ( he have never get his university degree due to an . err . accident in a college laboratory ) . he manage to push himself into various industrial lab in the textile industry . when the film begin he be in michael gough company and and gough ( in a memorable moment ) be try to impress his would be father in law ( cecil parker ) by show him the ship shape firm he run . while have lunch with parker and parker daughter ( joan greenwood ) and gough get a message regard some problem about the lab unexpectedly large budget problem . he read the huge expenditure ( due to guinness experiment ) and and choke on his coffee . guinness go on to work at parker firm and and repeat the same trick he do with gough but parker discovers it too . greenwood have discover what guinness be work on and and convinces parker to continue the experiment ( but now legally ) . the result represent guinness and his assistant have apparently figure out how to make an artificial fiber that can constantly change the electronic bond within it molecular structure so that ( for all intent and purpose ) the fiber will remain in tact for good . any textile make from it will never fade and get dirty and or wear out it will last forever . guinness have support from a female shop steward and but not her chief . he see guinness a sell out to the rich . but when he explain to them what he do and they turn against him . if everyone have clothes that will last forever then they will not need new clothes . soon parker fellow textile tycoon ( lead by gough and ernest theisinger in a wonderful performance and and howard marion crawford ) be equally panic stricken by what may end their business . they seek to suppress the invention . with only greenwood in his corner ( although parker sort of sympathizes with him ) and guinness try to get the news of his discovery to the public . in the end and guinness be defeat by science as well a greed . but he end the film see the error in his calculation and and we guess that one day he may still pull off his discovery after all . it a brilliant comedy . but be the argument for suppression valid . at one point the difficulty of make the textile be show ( you have to heat the thread to a high temperature to actually enable the end of the material to be unite . there be nothing that show the cloth will stretch if the owner get fat ( or contract if the owner get thin ) . be we to believe that people only would want one set of clothing for ever . what happen to fashion change and new style . and the cloth be only make in the color white ( make guinness look like a white knight ) . we be tell that color dye would have to be add earlier in the process . wouldn not that have an effect on the chemical reaction that maintain the structure of the textile . alas this be not a science paper and but a film about the hypocrisy of labor and capital in modern industry . a such it be brilliant . but those question i mention keep bothering me about the validity of suppress guinness invention .