The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
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| The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover. |
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| Directed by | Nunnally Johnson |
| Produced by | Darryl F. Zanuck |
| Written by | Nunnally Johnson (screenplay) Sloan Wilson (novel) |
| Starring | Gregory Peck Jennifer Jones Fredric March |
| Music by | Bernard Herrmann |
| Cinematography | Charles G. Clarke |
| Editing by | Dorothy Spencer |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | May 8, 1956 |
| Running time | 153 min. |
| Country | US |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson, is a novel about the American search for purpose in world dominated by business. Tom and Betsy Rath share a struggle to find contentment in their hectic and material culture while several other characters fight essentially the same battle, but struggle in it for different reasons. In the end, it is a story of taking responsibility for one's own life. The book was largely autobiographical, drawing on Wilson's experiences as assistant director of the US national citizen commission for the public schools.
The novel was made into a movie in 1956, starring Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones as Tom and Betsy Rath, with Fredric March and Lee J. Cobb and Ellen Janov in supporting roles (March plays Tom Rath's boss, a character based on Roy Larsen, Wilson's boss at Time, Inc.).
The movie and book have become hugely popular, and the book continues to appear in the references of sociologists to America's discontented businessman. In 2002, the book was returned to print in a new edition with a foreword by author Jonathan Franzen.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit II appeared in 1984 - by the time of the sequel, Tom and Betsy have divorced and Tom is employed in the Kennedy administration.
[edit] Plot Summary
Tom and Betsy Rath live in a rundown house in Southport, Connecticut around 1955. They have three TV-addicted kids (two girls and boy) and have money problems. Tom is 33 years old, a Harvard graduate, and barely survived as an Army officer during World War II. He fought in both the European and Pacific combat theaters (an unlikely scenario, but it sets the stage for his wartime love affair). About the first third of the movie presents haunting flashbacks to the affair as well as his combat experiences -- clearly the stuff of PTSD, viewers recognize today. His stay-at-home wife, who only knows Tom is somehow "changed" since the war, feels his job with a Manhattan charitable organization pays too little, and she and a fellow train commuter urge him to interview for a job at a New York-based television network.
Tom lands a public relations job working in a staff position for the top man at the network (Frederick March), an apparently affable empire-builder surrounded by politicking yes-men who is to propose the establishment of nationally improved mental health services to a group of physicians and offer to put his own prestige and network toward that end. The problem Tom has to solve is how the top network man can best present the proposal to the learned doctors so that the doctors will rise in unison after the speech and appoint the network top man to spearhead the campaign. Meanwhile, as a subtext to the various plot lines of this mid-1950s film the mental health theme frames the struggles of just about every character (including even the TV-addicted kids).
Hired on a six-month probationary basis, Tom reports to a humorless game-player who rejects five different drafts of the speech created by Tom and ends up substituting one of his own. Eventually the top network guy and Tom agree that the approach approved so far is all wrong in that it casts the network guy as an ignoramus who is in no way qualified to spearhead the campaign. Tom's approach is much more sensible: offer to run political ads in favor of the establishment of government-funded mental health programs. It would be an offer the doctors could not refuse.
Sidebar plots include (1) an attempt by the caretaker of Tom's late grandmother to fraudulently inherit her home (where Tom and his family live) in place of Tom; (2) the estrangement of Tom's network boss from his wife and daughter, due to his years of workaholic absence (the daughter quits school to elope with an undesirable man); and (3) Tom's earlier adulterous behavior and his out-of-wedlock son who was conceived in Italy during the war at a time of great stress, who pops up years later as an issue in a letter from the boy's Italian mother seeking monetary support for the boy at a most inconvenient time. Betsy goes berserk on hearing of this secret, but eventually calms down and seems to "grow up" and finally understand mutual emotional support -- not just mutual ambition -- binding wife and husband.
In the end, seeing the example of how his boss's marriage and family life had been ruined by overwork, Tom wisely turns down a high-pressure traveling position in order to work normal hours and spend time with his family, which now can be a place of healing for its members and by implication also for the broader restless culture.
