Film: Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
Gregory Peck, Jennifer Jones, Fredric March Star in 1956 Movie
Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit came to the big screen in 1956. Gregory Peck had the title role as Tom Rath, a family man still struggling with his horrific experiences as a WW II paratrooper. Jennifer Jones, Fredric March, Marisa Pavan and Lee J. Cobb appear in principal support.
Based on the Novel by Sloan Wilson
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit was based on the novel of the same name by Sloan Wilson (1920-2003). Published by Simon & Schuster in 1955, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit became a bestseller, serving as an anthem to the business climate of the 1950s.
Screenplay, Director, Music
Nunnally Johnson served as both writer and director. Bernard Hermann created the original music score.
Gregory Peck Heads Cast
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit boasted of an all-star cast comprised of Gregory Peck (Tom Rath), Jennifer Jones (Betsy Rath), Fredric March (Ralph Hopkins), Marisa Pavan (Maria Montagne), Lee J. Cobb (Judge Saul Bernstein), Ann Harding (Helen Hopkins), Keenan Wynn (Caesar Gardella), Gene Lockhart (Bill Hawthorne) and Gigi Perreau (Susan Hopkins).
Playing an Army medic in the Pacific war scenes was DeForest Kelley of Star Trek fame.
Gregory Peck Researches Role, Filmed in Connecticut
Gregory Peck researched his role as ad man/PR writer Tom Rath with a visit to New York City. Here, he conversed with men who worked in the advertising business. Peck even went so far as to board commuter trains wearing his own gray flannel suit, the uniform for young 1950s business executives. Apparently, it rendered the movie star just as anonymous as his adopted co-workers, for he was never recognized.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit was filmed primarily in Westport, Connecticut.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Movie
The film centers on 32-year-old Tom Rath, who lives in Connecticut with his wife and three kids. Tom is looking to step up in the business world and is subsequently hired by Ralph Hopkins of the United Broadcasting Corporation as a special assistant/speechwriter.
Hopkins is a brilliant, driven man who has sacrificed his personal life in order to accomplish big things in the business world. As a result, his estranged wife and young daughter have little use for him.
While commuting to New York one day Tom spies a man clad in a heavy winter coat with a fur-lined collar. Tom's thoughts then digress back to World War II where the viewer sees him and another paratrooper knife two German soldiers in order to steal their warm coats and avoid freezing to death.
The war continues to intrude in Tom's life. In yet another flashback, Tom is seen hurling a grenade at a Japanese position, an action which takes the life of his best friend.
Tom later confesses to his wife that he had personally killed 17 men in combat. He also admits to a wartime romance in Italy, one which produced a baby boy.
Release, Reviews
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit made its benefit premiere for the March of Dimes at the Roxy Theater in New York City on April 12, 1956.
"Writer-director Nunnally Johnson and producer Darryl F. Zanuck of Twentieth Century-Fox have fetched a mature, fascinating and often quite tender and touching film," observed Bosley Crowther of The New York Times (4/13/56).
Box Office, DVD
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit grossed $4.350 million, earning the #16 position on the list of the top moneymaking films of 1956.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is available on DVD from 20th Century-Fox (2005).
"I never wanted to get into this rat race, but now that I'm in it, I think I'd be an idiot not to play it the way everybody else plays it," Tom Rath declares.
Words to be taken seriously, especially from a man who personally killed 17 men in the war...
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