Madame Curie

This glossy biopic (based on the book by Marie Curie's daughter, Eve) attracted audiences with its welcome reunion of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, stars of the 1942 box-office hit Mrs. Miniver. In director Mervyn LeRoy's 1943 Madame Curie, the pair play soon-to-be-married scientists Marie Sklodowska, from Poland, and her French professor (as well as colleague and lab associate) Pierre Curie, whose discovery of radium led to the couple winning the Nobel Prize in 1903. The long journey to their scientific breakthrough is chronicled through a well-written screenplay that emphasizes how Pierre (and the scientific community in general) initially treated women as "irrational" and "incompatible with science," only to later embrace Marie's intelligence and enthusiasm, accepting her as a respected colleague. Garson's performance may strike some as a bit too idealized, and the film occasionally lapses into efficient but drama-killing stretches of scientific exposition, but the deft combination of personal romance and professional triumph is consistently entertaining, and like A Beautiful Mind nearly 60 years later, this appealing drama manages to convey an infectious enthusiasm for scientific inquiry, even if it cheats on specific biographical details to enhance its overall charm. Boasting a distinguished supporting cast (Robert Walker, Dame May Whitty, Henry Travers, and the young Van Johnson, among others), Madame Curie was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Actor, and Actress. Featuring a decent if unspectacular DVD transfer, extras include the 1937 Oscar-nominated vintage short “Romance of Radium.” Recommended. (J. Shannon)