The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956 Nunnally Johnson & scr)

Adapted from Sloan Wilson's novel (it feels novelish - he also wrote A Summer Place) by Johnson, ex-journalist and prolific writer for Fox (The Grapes of Wrath, Tobacco Road, How to Marry a Millionaire, The Three Faces of Eve, The Dirty Dozen, The World of Henry Orient). Veteran Gregory Peck is pushed by his wife Jennifer Jones into switching career into PR, works for millionaire benefactor Fredric March, has flashbacks to war experiences. This interesting article in the New Yorker suggests (among other things) that the protagonist is bothered more by the memory of the child that he's borne in Italy than the friend he accidentally killed in the Pacific. Certainly the sound design of that Pacific moment is incredible / incredibly noisy; in other respects, some of the sets look rather artificial, e.g. in Rome, a horse and carriage comes in to shot, and for a moment I thought we were inside. (Had never heard of cinematographer Charles Clarke).

It's enjoyably worthy and warrants 'long' treatment. Like the way the kids are endlessly watching westerns on TV - this is the studios doling out the 'TV is bad' message to the competition.

Rest of cast: Marisa Pavan, Lee J Cobb (who steals the film as a sensible Judge; 12 Angry Men), Ann Harding (March's wife), Keenan Wynn (war buddy), Gene Lockhart (friend on the train), Gigi Perreau (March's daughter), Arthur O'Connell (interviewer, best known to us for Anatomy of a Murder) and Henry Daniell as the unhelpful work colleague (tons of things: Witness for the Prosecution, The Sun Also Rises, Jane Eyre, Sherlock Holmes films), Joseph Sweeney (fraudster). Also have to credit (as he is uncredited) the actor who plays the black paratrooper who tries to help Peck with his dead buddy - I think it's Roy Glenn, who plays Poitier's dad in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Bernard Herrmann's score is like a trial run for Vertigo.

It's quite long - you could perhaps have usefully excised a sub-plot or two - through ultimately the message comes over that Peck's nine-to-five way of life is the way to go (family over career). Thus you have to have the bit with the daughter eloping.

Emotional distance