Q: "They were always trying to get me killed," Alec Guinness once wrote of The Man In the White Suit's technicians. "They thought actors got in the way of things." He went on to describe how he'd been given a wire rope to climb down and, assured it was safe, narrowly avoided serious injury when it suddenly snapped mid-descent.

"People get in the way of things" might be a maxim tailor-made for White Suit inventor Sidney Stratton (fittingly played blank slate-fashion by Alec Guinness) in Alexander Mackendrick's definitive Ealing film of 1951. Certainly, he cares only about his work, its realisation - and sod the consequences. And similarly, with the exception of a couple of peripheral characters, there's almost nobody to root for in this chilly satire on capital and labour.

Told in flashback, the film concerns Stratton's invention of a dirt-resistant, everlasting fibre (fashioned into the white suit of the title), and subsequent attempts by the clothing industry and its unions to suppress it.

While the industry fears the bottom will drop out of the market, the shop floor stewards worry about finding themselves out of a job. Abduction and bribery attempts follow, with both money and an industry chief's daughter on offer (Daphne, the delectable, 4-packs-a-day-voiced Joan Greenwood), to the tragi-comic end.

"What's to become of my bit of washing when there's no washing to do?" bemoans Stratton's landlady near the close. A notion Stratton hadn't even considered - and has disregarded again by the movie's ambiguous coda.

A superior, if decidedly downbeat comedy, expertly performed - and pretty much answering the oft-raised question of whatever happened to the everlasting light bulb and the car that ran on water...
A: positive
Q: For a comedy this has a decent and inventive plot and Trey Parker and Matt Stone's comic timing is perfect. There are dozens of funny moments to this fantastic movie. I especially like the multitude of colors and the way the clash in the sports arena scenes. Robert Stacks Unsolved Mysteries spoof is also very amusing.
A: positive
Q: For those who like depressing films with sleazy characters and a sordid storyline, this one is for you! From the bleak New York City atmosphere, which comes across as an extremely grim and almost hopeless place, to two diverse lead characters devoid of much sense of morality, this movie is a real downer.

Why it won the Academy Award was because it was so shocking at that time that Hollywood, brand new its freedom to show anything it wanted with all moral codes abandoned, wanted to celebrate that fact. Filmmakers then were like an immature six-year-old with an unlimited expense account at the local candy store. So, Hollywood gave theater viewers (for probably the first time) a dose of rape, prostitution, homosexuality, child nudity, homeless existence and other such wonderful sights and sounds only its twisted brain would think is appealing....and then awarded its work.

It also hoped, I'm sure, to shock mainstream audiences. Well, it succeeded on that level. Audiences were stunned at what they say and heard and the Academy, proud of itself for being able to display filth and make money at the same time, couldn't help but bestow honors upon this piece of gilded garbage.

Forty years ago, as a very young man, I found this film fascinating, too. However, seeing it again in the 1990s left such a bad taste in my mouth I never watched to view it again.

The acting was good, but so what? Acting is good in many films. Nobody ever said Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight couldn't act. Hoffman was particularly good in his younger days in playing wacked-out people. He was kind of like the Johnny Depp of his era, playing guys like "Ratso Rizzo" in this film and then going to be the "Rain Man" later on. Yes, "Ratso" is a character you'll never forget, and "Joe Buck" (Voight) is one you want to forget, but the story is so sordid, it overwhelms the fine acting.

This movie isn't "art," and it isn't worthy of its many awards; it only pushed the envelope big-time in 1969 and that's why it is so fondly remembered in the hearts of film people and critics. It's two hours of profanity and ultra-sleazy, religious cheap shots, glorifying weirdos (Andy Warhol even gets in the act - no surprise), and generally despicable people.

I did like the catchy song, "Everybody's Talking'" that helped make Harry Nilsson famous, but even that was bogus because Fred Neil wrote the song and sang it better, before Nilsson did it....and few people have ever heard of Neil (which is their loss). And - as mentioned - the name "Ratso Rizzo" kind of stays with you!

The film is a landmark, but in a negative sense, I fear: this marked it as "official" that Hollywood had gone down the toilet, and it has remained in the sewer ever since.
A: negative
Q: If I watch a movie and don't once look at my watch or clock to see how much longer it will be running or when I hope that the last scene wasn't the end of the movie, it's got to be pretty good. I'm not an movie internalist or cinema dissectionist. I watch movies and if they keep me interested till the end, then they are pretty good because some of the most critically acclaimed films bore me to death (The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Atonement, Crash. This movie kept me interested and absorbed beginning to end. Acting is great, story is absolutely original, flash-back technique very affective. There was a bit of Citizen Kane thrown in tho when Hoffman trashes his apartment after Tomei leaves him, but I forgive that cause I see it as a homage to, rather than a rip-off of, Orson.
A: positive