Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones starred in the most-twisted mainstream film I have ever seen, "Duel in the Sun". Bad enough their characters had no redeeming qualities, their showdown tries to force you to pick a side. It's sort of that way in "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit", but here, Peck is such a wuss, his children (who are strangely obsessed with death, even counting how many characters on the westerns they watch on TV get shot) ignore him, and Jones is a social climbing harpy who makes life-altering decisions without so much as giving Hubby a heads-up. When she informs him that she has sold their home and they are moving into the abode his grandmother (may or may not have) left him, he doesn't even blink! Social Climbing Harpy's reaction to Doormat's admission that he fathered a boy while in Italy during the War is so ludicrously over-the-top, I laughed. When Doormat tells Social Climbing Harpy at the end of the film "I worship you", I wanted to hurl. Needless to say, I never bought them as a couple. The flashbacks make clear that Doormat cared deeply for Mamma Bambino, but he now wants nothing to do with her or their boy, yet he's a pillar of virtue because he feels obligated (after some serious arm-twisting by his Army buddy) to cough up $100 a month for their care? What a "gent".
The subplot, which goes nowhere, has Doormat's Boss being forced by his own Social Climbing Harpy (whom has nothing better to do except prattle around in haute couture) to deal with their spoiled brat, who wants to do nothing but party with cads and blow through Boss's money. Why Boss doesn't toss Spoiled Brat out on her derrière and cut her off without a cent is not for us lesser minds to ponder. And the idea that Boss sees Doormat as a surrogate son to where he's fine with Doormat proclaiming that he's a "9 to 5 man" from now on strains credulity to say the least.
As for the film's "message", it's been done to death and done better.
The subplot, which goes nowhere, has Doormat's Boss being forced by his own Social Climbing Harpy (whom has nothing better to do except prattle around in haute couture) to deal with their spoiled brat, who wants to do nothing but party with cads and blow through Boss's money. Why Boss doesn't toss Spoiled Brat out on her derrière and cut her off without a cent is not for us lesser minds to ponder. And the idea that Boss sees Doormat as a surrogate son to where he's fine with Doormat proclaiming that he's a "9 to 5 man" from now on strains credulity to say the least.
As for the film's "message", it's been done to death and done better.