Madame Curie

A biographical film about Marie Curie's work on radium. The narrative begins with her student days in Paris. Marie is poor, foreign and a woman, and getting into a laboratory is hard. Pierre Curie makes room for her; they become colleagues first and then husband and wife. At the centre is a single effort: separating an unknown element from pitchblende ore. That means boiling tonnes of material by hand in a shed. The process takes years and the film shows it without abbreviation; the laboratory scenes are the longest section. The shot of the tube glowing in the dark is the film's best-known moment. The source is the biography written by the Curies' daughter Ève. Greer Garson plays Marie and Walter Pidgeon plays Pierre; the two appeared together in a number of films at the time. Mervyn LeRoy directed. The film received seven Oscar nominations. It was made during the war years and, in keeping with studio practice of the period, simplifies the science; the effect of radium on health is barely raised at all. A solid example for anyone who likes classical Hollywood biography and the history of science. For a viewer expecting a realistic portrait of a scientist, the film is idealised and the difficult parts of a private life are left outside it.