The Man in the White Suit 4K 1951 Ultra HD 2160p

Eccentric inventor Sidney Stratton was expelled from Cambridge and several textile companies for his dangerous experiments, some of which ended in explosions. After several failed attempts, the scientist finally created a fabric with unique properties. It does not stain or wear out. Stratton sews a white suit from it and prepares to present it to the press. But it seems that his invention is too ingenious and effective: if the fabric is eternal, textile factories will be out of business, and their employees will be out of work. And so the unlucky Stratton goes on the run, pursued by both management and workers.

User Review

No cure for AIDS? Cancer incurable? Human cloning experiments unsuccessful? And still no cheap source of energy that doesn't pollute the environment? But what if there is? What if all of this has long been invented and discovered, and is kept under strict secrecy in the most hidden corners of our planet, accessible only to a select few — or perhaps no longer accessible to anyone? Just imagine if there were a cure for cancer. If it became known, what huge profits would pharmacology, medicine, and chemistry lose... What incredible battles would begin for control over the production of this cure, how many people would lose their jobs, and how many would simply be wiped off the face of the earth in the pursuit of the almighty patent and the “green god.”

The film “The Man in the White Suit” is about just that — about the timeliness and untimeliness of discoveries, about the troubles and misfortunes that uncontrolled scientific progress brings, about altruistic pioneers who, acting solely for the good of humanity, bring it only harm, about people who determine the fate of the world by controlling and regulating science, and about the rest, who are narrow-minded, unwilling to accept anything new, afraid of everything, and ready to destroy anyone and anything for the sake of their own petty bourgeois peace of mind and so-called stability, which is so much talked about today. Let life not be too good, but at least it is stably not too good, without any sudden changes or revolutions, and the best, gentlemen, is the enemy of the good. It is a rotten philosophy, but nevertheless accepted by people - people fear for their own little four-walled worlds.

This film appeared in the middle of the 20th century, just at the time of the modern scientific and technological revolution, when the impossible seemed possible, space was getting closer, and people who had lived through a world war wanted a world where everything would be for them and, ideally, independent of the prevailing ideology. In essence, the revolutionary foundations on which progress is now based originated in that era, and since then there have been virtually no new inventions—only improvements to existing ones. Perhaps the new ones remain ‘behind the scenes’ of our reality, as untested and dangerous. Moreover, in this case, everything is clearly distributed - production, patents, rights, profits... And the new will inevitably cause discord. It is not true that humanity is moving forward. Humanity fears the new like a rabbi fears a fascist. Take religion, for example—people are willing to kill each other just so that no one touches what creates a sense of balance, so necessary for unstable humanity. Or, closer to home, cinema, where remakes, sequels, and prequels are becoming increasingly popular—a stable source of income that allows you to make good money with minimal risk while still appealing to the masses.

This film is strikingly relevant today, when, despite seemingly incredible technological advances, if you dig deeper, it becomes clear that civilization is treading water and complacently pruning the shoots that once sprouted, cautiously cutting off new ones.

The hero of the film has invented a fabric that is as strong as diamond, does not stain, and requires no care. And he finds himself in disfavor with both the billionaire monopolists who dress the whole world and the common people: people understand what radical changes in the world this seemingly trivial invention entails... The threads of those very underpants that we wear every day are so tightly woven into hundreds of different processes around the world that if even one of them were to break, the world would be turned upside down.

Alec Guinness, a brilliant English actor, perfectly embodies the image of an altruistic scientist who puts all his energy into science and thinks exclusively in utopian terms. And despite the fact that his invention could never take root as a perpetual motion machine, he deserves sympathy and respect. After all, it is thanks to such brilliant madmen, who are in love with science to the point of complete self-denial and ready to make any sacrifice for a noble cause, that humanity enjoys the benefits without which we can no longer imagine our lives.

At times, this film resembles a Hitchcock thriller, with scenes in which the hunted inventor flees from his relentless pursuers clearly inspired by The 39 Steps, Suspicion, The Secret Agent, and other films by the master of suspense. At times it turns into a rather light-hearted comedy, at times into an exciting science fiction film. But at the same time, it does not forget its main function—satire on a bourgeois society, conservative and insecure, obsessed with money, incapable of accepting not only new inventions and scientific and technological progress, but also a new type of person—an idealist without money, in whom people sincerely believed at that time. After all, his appearance was predicted by Verne and Wells, Asimov and Bradbury, Belyaev and the Strugatskys. It is a pity that so far it is Orwell's prophecies that are coming true, albeit not in their most gloomy form.

Director Mackendrick's leftist attitude towards life is noticeable and obvious—he brands the bourgeoisie with shame, laughs at stupid plebeians, and turns Guinness's character into almost a Prometheus, rejected by society, slandered, exiled, but not giving up. This hero responds to the socialist sentiments popular in those years and attempts to break free from the capitalist way of life, where everyone, no matter how high they fly, still flies within the confines of bondage, and there is always a master above everyone.

This film contains the contradictions of inventions, the understanding of inventors, sympathy for the ‘powers that be’, who are also maniacally afraid for their world, anger at their dirty methods, with which they try to administer justice that only they understand, and a sad conclusion about people who, for the most part, support the established pyramidal world order, even though they curse it with their words, and the idea that everything in the world is subject to immediate accounting and assignment to a ‘master’, otherwise it is destroyed.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (89.5 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Info Audio

#English: FLAC 2.0
#English: FLAC 2.0 (Commentary by Film Historian Dr. Dean Brandum)

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