The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

Plot synopsis:
Ten years after the end of World War II, Tom Rath (Gregory Peck) is living in suburban Connecticut with his wife Betsy (Jennifer Jones) and three children, and having difficulty supporting his family on his salary writing for a nonprofit organization. Tom is also dealing with flashbacks from his combat service as an Army Captain in both the European and Pacific theaters, involving men that he killed (including, by accident, his best friend), and a young Italian girl named Maria (Marisa Pavan), with whom he had a brief but heartfelt affair in Italy despite his being in a relationship with Betsy at the time. Before Tom left Maria for the final time to go back into battle, Maria told Tom that she was pregnant and was going to keep the baby. Tom would never see her or the child again.
When an expected inheritance from Tom's recently deceased grandmother turns out to have been depleted, leaving only her large and not saleable mansion, Betsy pressures Tom to seek a higher-paying job. Acting on a tip from a fellow train commuter, Tom interviews for an opening at the television network UBC, but when asked to write his autobiography as part of the interview process, he refuses. He is hired anyway for a public relations job, helping the network president Ralph Hopkins (Fredric March) launch a national mental health campaign. Hopkins is powerful and highly respected at the office, but unbeknownst to his employees, his workaholic habits have caused him to be estranged from his wife and his rebellious daughter, who soon elopes with an unsuitable man.
Tom is initially supervised by Bill Ogden (Henry Daniell), a micromanager and office politician who rejects Tom's drafts of an important Hopkins speech intended to launch the campaign and substitutes a draft of his own consisting of what Ogden thinks Hopkins wants to hear. At first Tom plans to play along with office politics and accept Ogden's draft, but, coaxed by Betsy, openly derides the draft as false modesty and presents his original ideas to Hopkins instead. Hopkins, who has just received the unwelcome news of his daughter's elopement, is receptive to Tom's criticism and thinks Tom resembles his own late son, who refused to accept an officer's commission in World War II and was subsequently killed in action as an enlisted man. Hopkins now regrets having ignored his family and advises Tom not to make the same mistake.
Meanwhile, Betsy, eager to move to a better house, abruptly sells the family's modest dwelling and moves them into Tom's late grandmother's mansion, "Dragonwyck," only to find that Edward (Joseph Sweeney), the old woman's longtime caretaker at the mansion, is claiming that Tom's grandmother had bequeathed him the estate. Judge Bernstein (played by veteran character actor Lee J. Cobb) intercedes and presents evidence that suggests that not only did Edward forge the bequest letter, but he also padded his bills to the grandmother, thus depleting the estate and accumulating a large fortune in the town's bank that he could not otherwise explain. The Raths keep the mansion.
At his new job, Tom meets Caesar (Keenan Wynn), a sergeant with whom he'd served in Italy, now the UBC Building's elevator operator. Caesar, who married Maria's cousin, tells Tom that Maria and her illegitimate son by Tom are desperate for money in their still war-ravaged country. Although Tom has previously kept his affair and the resulting child a secret from Betsy, he decides to tell her, remembering her advice to be honest about Hopkins' speech. Betsy grows furious and speeds away in her car, but she runs out of gas and they reconcile at the local police station. Tom and Betsy ask Judge Bernstein to set up a trust fund for Tom's son in Italy. That night, Hopkins calls Tom to ask that he accompany Hopkins on a trip to California associated with the new campaign. Tom declines, saying he just "wants to work 9 to 5 and spend the rest of the time with his family," which Hopkins respectfully accepts. Hopkins then thinks back on his decision on being more than a 9-to-5 job.

Tags: melodrama, flashback

Review:
In Connecticut, the former WWII officer Tom Rath (Gregory Peck) and his wife Betsy (Jennifer Jones) are happily married middle class couple with three children.
Further, he learns that he has a son with Maria and she is very needy and he needs to choose between telling the truth to Betsy or keep the secret."The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" is a realistic and humanistic drama about choices of an insecure man with a war trauma that frequently haunts him.
The title was a catchphrase for corporate America for many, many years, a kind of symbol for overachieving, aggressive, ambitious businessmen without principles -- in other words, the "suits."Though I am generally wary of Gregory Peck's (and Jennifer Jones') tendency to niceness, I was impressed by their work here.
Hanging over him are the ever-present memories of his wartime combat experience, which intrude on him occasionally  especially during those otherwise empty hours spent commuting on the train.I disagree with the reviewer who found the film boring apart from the war scenes.
Ten years after Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones lit up the screen with their torrid love-hate relationship in "Duel in the Sun," they were reunited in this engrossing business-domestic drama.The two were surrounded by a great cast, headed by Fredric March and Lee J.
The story is interesting; Gregory Peck as an ethical executive, trying to get ahead; his wife seems more concerned with his inheritance, apparently his relative has died and left him a mansion in rural (at the time)Connecticut.This American dream is deferred when Peck learns he has sired a child during the war.
At times, Mr. Johnson succeeds, but the film he gave us is a bit dated when one looks at it today.Granted, some things never change, but the conflicts that made the basis for this melodrama, have been dealt with, more effectively in other, more distinguished films.If you haven't seen the film, perhaps you should stop here.In the center of the story we are presented with the epitome of decency: Gregory Peck.
Jennifer Jones' interpretation of Betsy is not as effective in this film, perhaps because of the direction given by Mr. Johnson.The cast if first rate.
Cobb, two of the best all time actors of the American stage and screen give life to both of the characters they play.
Gregory Peck's character Tom Rath is dishonest on several levels and his wife Betsey (Jennifer Jones) knows it!
At the films beginning, she says "You've changed!" Through several flashbacks, we see some Tom Rath's rough war life.
Peck is just your average war hero now slogging through corporate trenches who runs into a problem or two but the suburb-based judge is there to bail him out.Fredric March is the business tycoon who's sacrificed his family for the company, a TV network, wouldn't you know?
Instead of leaving, Peck sits down in front of the set as the scene fades.As any kind of insight into corporate light, this film moves far too stiffly to be critical but there's a soap opera feel to the goings-on that is somewhat captivating..
Gregory Peck gives (in my opinion) his best performance of any film that I've seen him in.
It's not a war film, I know, but if that's the case, we are at a loss how to look at the war sequences (which are important and long) with any seriousness.Which brings up a more subtle and pervasive problem: the overall timing of the issues if off.
The key crisis within Peck's character is a resolving of his war time experiences, good and bad (mostly bad, I guess, but he had a beautiful love affair and child, too, which can be seen as good).
I think the flashbacks can be real a decade or two later, but the social adjustments seem delayed to me.Jennifer Jones is quirky in her role here, and I came to see, especially after she blows up at Peck in one scene, that she's quite perfect and brilliant as a 1950s mom and wife.
Move over, Frederic March, ("Best Years of Our Lives" and also in this film as well,) Peck has other problems.It seems that he fathered an illegitimate child while in the service.
Cobb, a great under-rated actor is tops as Judge Bernstein, who will work with Peck to provide for the child.A wonderful film depicting a moral dilemma..
Gregory Peck is fine in the lead role, but Jennifer Jones is a little shrill as his wife.The supporting cast is excellent.
The movie doesn't sugar-coat soldiers' flaws, nor does it dilute the sacrifices made by the American soldiers of WWII.Certainly Tom Rath's was an exceptional case, but elements of his character were undoubtedly derived from each and every veteran that returned from the war.If you love stories about WWII and would like to get the perspective of an average soldier's experiences (during but mostly following WWII), then this movie is definitely for you.
Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones who ten years earlier lit up the screen in Duel from the Sun get together again for a film that's as far removed from that classic as George Washington to George Bush.The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit just doesn't translate well for the screen.
Gregory Peck is Mr. Fifties typical suburbanite with the wife, three kids and a mortgage and looking to do better for himself and his family.
The head man, Fredric March likes him enough, but Peck arouses the jealousy of others in the place like Henry Daniell and Arthur O'Connell.He's also got an inheritance problem when he gets a sprawling estate from his grandmother and then her caretaker, Joseph Sweeney, looks to contest the will.
Toward the end Jennifer Jones (Peck's wife) gets overly dramatic, and the background music is way over the top, but typical for movies of this era.
Another reason for the interest in the film at the time was because of the unusual treatment of Peck being employed in the newly created television industry, a job you went to in Manhattan in a suit which was, often, grey flannel (hence the title).
The other major role in the film is played with his usual dignity and thoughtfulness by Frederic March, as the rich head of a broadcasting corporation who hires Peck and whose arid and troubled private life is a major part of the story as well.
The title suggested to me something about life in corporate America, but that was just a background to what was really going on.The movie was really about men.I certainly would not excuse the taking of the opportunity to have an illicit affair during wartime, but I can understand the longing for warmth and affection when you are so far away from home and feel that you life is about to end.I was really taken with the character's (Gregory Peck) cautious approach to life.
It was a fascinating movie, and I believe that every man cans see some of himself in Peck's character.A lot of big stars from the era: Fredric March, Lee J.
The basic idea,of a man who has to decide which is more important to him-his career,or his family,is one which is probably important to a great many people,as is the secondary plot element,which is guilt over something done in the past.Indeed for the first hour the film does work very well,as introduces Gregory Peck's character,his family,and every now and again flashes back to events in the Second World War which made him the troubled man he is now {shades of Peck's starring role three years before in The Snows of Kilimanjaro!}.Bernard Hermann provides some especially beautiful music for Peck's affair with an Italian girl.
The transitions are well done although one battle scene looks rather unconvincing these days.However,the rest of the movie is something of a slog,as Peck wrestles with what is important in his life as he begins a new,high-powered job.
Good film, one of Gregory Peck's best!.
Gregory Peck & Jennifer Jones work well together if perhaps seeming a little bit too elegant for the leading roles of Mr.
There's nothing wrong with Jennifer Jones' performance but it's her character that gives me problems in this movie, her totally over the top reaction towards the end is really not very convincing, not her acting but the script which I feel is at fault and for me at least ,spoils what otherwise is a fascinating portrait of life in another era.
Written and directed by Nunnally Johnson, this tale of a man, Gregory Peck, fighting battles on Madison Avenue and flashing back to battles fought during the war, all in the name of protecting those back at home, is a terrifically compelling one.
Part of the film's focus is how his wife, Jennifer Jones, and family never understand or appreciate the battles he's fought in his work-life or his time as a soldier.
Peck then must decide whether he should bring his wife and family into the ugliness of what he faced during the war and if he should continue that battle on Madison Avenue taking a higher paying job that will better support his family, but leave him little time with and more disconnected them (that potential future is represented in CEO Frederick March, a successful businessman but failed family man).
Gregory Peck, Jennifer Jones and Frederic March are terrific in their roles, all of which require great emotional range and intensity, not easy to do in a movie this long and not often demanded in post-WWII films.
Nunnally Johnson both wrote and directed this interesting film that stars Gregory Peck as WWII veteran Tom Wrath, who is now a happily married man to his loving wife Betsy(played by Jennifer Jones) and also has three children in his Connecticut home, where he works for a small salary at a charity organization.
Once that is settled, a person from Tom's past comes back to give him some unexpected news regarding a wartime love...How can he break the news to his wife, whom he does dearly love?Though a bit long, this is still a compelling look at war and peace time life seen from the perspective of a good man who was forced by circumstances to do things he was not proud of.
Tom Rath (Gregory Peck) is the immaculately dressed husband in search of a better paid job and his wife who has big plans for their future seems to do most of the pushing.
Ralph Hopkins (wonderfully played by Fredric March) top man in the Company regrets he gave all his time to the job( a disaster for his family) while Tom is a shining example of a loving father who gives time to his children.
And Peck comes to terms with some genuine human errors in a way that is more like a 60s film.
Great Stars: Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck.
This films has 3 Oscar winners: Jennifer Jones, Frederic March and Gregory Peck.
Ann Harding, Arthur O Connell, Lee J Cobb are among the stellar supporting cast.Too bad Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck life long friends never found a 3rd film in their mature years to star in.
The feeling of the time, though I wouldn't know about it, nor do I largely care, was apparently well captured in the film.The various shifts, from the light-hearted jokes to the serious situations left me wanting little more from this movie.The two main characters are by far the draws.
They clearly show how the hypocrisy of a person in the moment can be dealt with, especially when the person is able to truly believe in what they say.The hilariously ugly costumes and sets are also a sign of the times.The only thing I would have liked would have been to see the ending close out what happened with the main character's job.Definitely one of my new favourite films..
The main problems are that Jennifer Jones is totally unappealing as Gregory Peck's wife, Peck himself, though a wonderful actor, seems unsure of what to do with the odd storyline, the movie introduces far too many plot twists (some of which are never resolved), and the ending is terribly anticlimactic.
The one good scene in the film is toward the end when Gregory Peck tells his wife about a difficult event in his past.
I was very surprised by the film end as nothing in the movie indicate his true love for his wife even when he says it to her - I don't believe him.
Ten years after their fantastic, steamy pairing in Duel in the Sun, Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones reunited in the adaptation of the successful novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.
This one can feel a little slow and anticlimactic, so unless you're really into old movies or Gregory Peck, you might not like it that much..
'The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit' could have been a great film.
Gregory Peck is always worth watching, the set design is exquisite (like a Douglas Sirk movie), and there's a decent story here, but Nunnally Johnson's direction is slack and plodding beyond belief--153 minutes of mostly unrelieved tedium.
The film stars the quintessential man of integrity, Gregory Peck as Tom Rath.
I don't know how it is that I had missed seeing it for so many years.The most outstanding thing about this film is, of course, Gregory Peck -- one of those rare actors whom I don't simply enjoy, but whose abilities and integrity as an actor I also respect.
This is sort of an unusual melodrama, told in an unusual way involving a lot of extended flashbacks that tell us the life story of the titular (apparently) generic office worker Tom Rath (Gregory Peck).
But the thematic connections become pretty clear at the end, when Peck decides not to place his work above his family the way March's character did.
In Peck he sees someone with a good heart like himself, but ultimately he can't convince Peck to make the kind of sacrifices necessary to become his right-hand man.Peck and Jones don't have much chemistry in my opinion, which is the biggest flaw of the film.
As much as I love Jennifer Jones, I found her character so disagreeable and self-centered under the circumstances that I had a difficult time distinguishing the actor from the role that she was playing.
The film wasn't prescient about the changes to come, but it reveals some of the tensions that drove them.Baby Boomers can relate to this film: the father, Tom Rath (Gregory Peck), is a WW2 veteran who now commutes by train to an office job in the city; the mother, Betsy (Jennifer Jones), stays at home looking after the house and the three kids.
Gregory Peck made a solid Tom Rath, while Jennifer Jones injected a range of emotions into the film.
SPOILERS HERE AND THEREThis is a good example of how abysmal melodrama can turn .First of all,Jennifer Jones,who's supposed to be the female lead only appears thirty minutes !And it is an absurdly overlong yarn which drags on and on and on.For the central plot-because there are ,like in any melodrama ,plenty of subplots-Peck had a son in Italy when he went on a fling with Marisa Pavan during WW2,unbeknowst to his beloved faithful wife Jennifer.A duel -not in the sun,like in Vidor's classic- is around the corner.The director's name did not go down in history ,quite rightly so:there's not a ghost of an idea of directing in this film:most of the time ,the characters seem to be on a stage,ready to make an almighty fuss which never comes .The flashbacks -which are among the worst in history-comes at the most awkward moment,because of a man -an ominous music(Herrmann) can be heard- whom Peck saw on the train.AH!And Jennifer told her hubby "you've changed since the war" .The flashbacks tell us about Peck's racy -and tragic- past.Then the movie completely leaves the memories behind for a long long while and focuses on an uninteresting hodgepodge of subplots: a campaign for mental disease;social advancement-a very dramatic scene shows Peck begging for a few bucks more-;the hero's boss who 's got big problems with his wife whom he's never loved and his daughter who does not want -gulp!- to go to the university and gets married -with a boy from a good background,don't panic-without even-sigh- phoning him;and to top it all ,a priceless story of heritage,the end of which we"ll never know.When it comes back to the essential,that is to say the Peck/Jones "duel",I must say I had forgotten  all about the husband's secret.But the moral is safe:the hero has understood -and it took him a 2 1/2 movie to notice that!-that money can't buy happiness and that you've got to be a good husband and father -in every sense of the term- to live a fulfilled life.This is a stodgy dull movie which even shows condescension -the cap's ex-soldier who became an elevator attendant-and even contempt-the old servant who used to take care of the grandma is looked upon as the villain;another moral should be :if you want to stay virtuous,make sure you're part of the folks on the hill..
Gregory Peck as the title characters is harassed and work and by his wife, played by Jennifer Jones who feels she grew up in wealth and comfort which she might never find again as her husband seems cooler and more distant.
Jennifer Jones has always in the movies I have watched from this era holds you visually but does not reveal her character's soul when told to play a fiction life crisis scene.
Gregory Peck has a wife, Jennifer Jones, and three lovely kiddies, all three locked onto the television set.
As John McCarten aptly commented in his New Yorker review, "As played by Jennifer Jones, the wife is so persistently surly that it's hard to imagine why her husband (Peck) does not clear out." The movie had a wonderful music score by Bernard Herrmann too!