Another round of Guinness. Brilliant!

Last night I saw The Man in the White Suit, another of the classic Alec Guinness comedies produced by Ealing Studios in the 1950s. In this one from 1951, Guinness plays Sidney Stratton, an unassuming polymer chemist working for various synthetic textile plants in northern England when he invents an incredibly strong new fiber that can be spun into fabric that never wears out and never gets dirty. Never needs washing? Brilliant! Never wears out? Brilliant! Unless your livelihood is derived from making things that wear out and need replacing, which is why the razor blade that never gets dull and the light bulb that never burns out are not on the market. Therefore the barons of the English Textile industry, including a fantastic absurdly old man who makes Mr. Burns look rather spritely, conspire to keep the new material off the market. They are not the only ones opposed to his invention as the mill's labor union vows to down their tools until they receive a promise that the company will never switch to this new material. Indeed, even an old woman who makes her meager living doing people's laundry wonders why scientists can't just leave things alone.

Also recommending are the other Ealing comedies The Ladykillers, The Lavender Hill Mob, and Kind Hearts and Coronets, in which Guinness plays all eight family members that must die in order for a man to become the duke. I still have plenty of Guiness's work with director David Lean to go through. Guinness is brilliant in The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Lawrence of Arabia is excellent with Guinness in a supporting role, but I have not yet seen the other four film in which Lean directs Guinness--Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Dr. Zhivago, and A Passage to India. Plus, I didn't get to watch my Christmas present to my dad, the DVD of the BBC's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and I haven't seen his other BBC portrayal of Le Carre's George Smiley in Smiley's People.

Also of note is that Alec Guinness was nomination for the Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Oscar for the only screenplay he wrote, 1958's The Horse's Mouth, in which he also starred.