Although this film-poster shows the later American version,  the hero of the British film - The Man in the Grey Flannelled Suit was played by a fine English actor called Alec Guinness. The protagonist works in a northern cotton mill in the twenties. Employed as a technician/chemist in the mill's laboratory, and mainly concerned with supervising the preparation of coloured dyes, he accidentally discovers a process with renders the cotton cloth impermeable to dirt, oil, and even acids.
Overcome with exhilaration he triumphantly tells the oleaginous millowner, who realising that the young man is destined to become a multi-billionaire, makes him boss of the mill, and even offers him the hand of his daughter in marriage. Soon the cloth producers and clothing retailers at large realise that this discovery will probably bring about the collapse of their empires, and their financial ruin. Like the automobile manufactures, this principle of 'built-in obsolescence' was vital to the trade, and if clothes never got dirty, and never wore out - well then - they could expect a huge drop in their revenues.
Dancing with joy, the young hero hurries to the home of the mill-owners daughter to take her out to the best hotel in town, when... suddenly... it starts to rain! With mounting horror, he observes large patches and then holes appearing in his wonderful grey flannel suit! Within minutes the cloth disintegrates and falls in sodden lumps onto the glistening cobbles of the dark windswept streets. It's then that the full dreadful realisation hits him - the one thing that was capable of destroying his invention was.... WATER! So it’s back to the lab - the marriage is off - the dream of riches is over!
One wonders if in the real world such things have happened to patents considered to be a threat to the livelihood of other manufacturers? |
