In Connecticut, the former WWII officer Tom Rath (Gregory Peck) and his wife Betsy (Jennifer Jones) are happily married middle class couple with three children. However, they have financial difficulties and Tom commutes every day to Manhattan to work in a charitable organization receiving a low salary.

Tom is tormented by the traumatic experience in war, where he killed seventeen persons including a young German soldier and he occasionally recalls his love affair with the Italian Maria (Marisa Pavan) in 1945.

When Tom inherits his grandmother's house, her former servant claims the real state but using forged document. Meanwhile Tom is hired to work as public relation of a television network and is assigned to write a speech to the owner, Ralph Hopkins (Frederic March). Soon he needs to decide whether he will be a dedicated executive or 9 to 5 fellows. Further, he learns that he has a son with Maria and she is very needy and he needs to choose between telling the truth to Betsy or keep the secret.

"The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" is a realistic and humanistic drama about choices of an insecure man with a war trauma that frequently haunts him. Tom Rath sometimes is reluctant, thinking in the safety of his family first, but always takes the right decision supported by his beloved wife Betsy. The story has many subplots and one memorable character, Judge Bernstein, performed by Lee J. Cobb. The story is long but never boring. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Homem do Terno Cinzento" ("Man in the Gray Suit")

While this is not one of Gregory Peck's more famous films, it sure deserves to be--particularly for its deep, complex and amazingly adult plot. Now I do not say "adult" as in sleazy or violent, but because the film dares to tackle the true problem caused by overseas romances during WWII.

Peck is a top executive with his firm and is happily married. Life is very good. However, unexpectedly, Peck discovers that he's got a child living in Italy. It seems that when he was there in the war, his brief romance had resulted in a child. He never knew that had occurred and being a decent man at heart, when he learns he can't allow the child to continue as just another little bastard. Despite every reason to pretend the child did not exist (pressure from his wife and boss), he bravely did the right thing--and that is the essence of so many of Peck's greatest characters. They weren't perfect, but like Atticus Finch in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, he acted even when it would have been so much easier and safer to have done nothing. A wonderful film.

Ten years after Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones lit up the screen with their torrid love-hate relationship in "Duel in the Sun," they were reunited in this engrossing business-domestic drama.

The two were surrounded by a great cast, headed by Fredric March and Lee J. Cobb, to offer a sincere portrait of a junior Madison Avenue exec who must choose between being a "big CEO" or a "second-tier nine-to-fiver".

Director/screenwriter Nunnaly Johnson guided the actors in uniformly well-modulated performances, all deeply felt and cleanly expressed. Keenan Wynn offered a surprisingly subtle and touching performance as well, in a film produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, with a Bernard Herrmann score.

What a treat it is to watch these fine thespians breathe life into most intriguing characters from Sloan Wilson's thoughtful novel.