Madame Curie (1943)

Director:

Mervyn LeRoy

Writers:

Ève Curie (book)
Paul Osborn (writer)

Release Date:

February 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Tagline:

MR. and MRS. MINIVER together again

Plot:

Despite himself, accomplished physicist and avowed bachelor Pierre Curie falls for brilliant student Marie, and together they embark on the discovery of radium.

Plot Keywords:

Raw Material | Beautiful Woman | Marie Curie | Based On Book | Character Name In Title

Awards:

Nominated for 7 Oscars.

Cast

Greer Garson	...	Marie Curie
Walter Pidgeon	...	Pierre Curie
Henry Travers	...	Eugene Curie
Albert Bassermann	...	Prof. Jean Perot
Robert Walker	...	David Le Gros
C. Aubrey Smith	...	Lord Kelvin
Dame May Whitty	...	Madame Eugene Curie
Victor Francen	...	President of University
Elsa Basserman	...	Madame Perot
Reginald Owen	...	Dr. Becquerel
Van Johnson	...	Reporter
Margaret O'Brien	...	Irene Curie (at age 5)
James Hilton	...	Narrator (voice)

Runtime:

124 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | USA:Approved (PCA #9500)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

In her final years at MGM, Joan Crawford was handed weak scripts in the hopes that she'd break her contract. Two films she hungered to appear in were Random Harvest (1942) and Madame Curie (1943). Both films went to bright new star Greer Garson instead, and Crawford left the studio soon after.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Marie determines chemical composition of pitchblende, 7 minerals add to 99%, one mineral (magnesium oxide) is .99% and the "extraneous matter" of .001% all adds up to 99.991%. Presumably the mag-Ox should be .999%, otherwise, the actual extraneous matter would be 10 times greater (.01%) than Marie's stated measurement.

Movie Connections:

Featured in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers (2006) (TV)

Garson and Pidgeon, A Perfect Fit

For their third MGM collaboration, Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson were cast as Pierre and Marie Curie in this epic biographical drama about the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in science. The Curies contribution to science was a newly discovered element radium which did nothing less than alter how we think about matter itself.

The film carries the story of Marie Curie's life when she was a young student at the Sorbonne from Poland under her maiden name of Sklodowska. The mere fact she was a student there and a brilliant one was highly unusual for women in the 19th century. Her brilliance attracts the attention of young instructor there Pierre Curie, first her mind and then her heart.

Pierre and Marie Curie seem such a perfect fit for each other mainly because Pidgeon and Garson worked so well together on screen. Both got nominations for Best Actor and Actress for 1943, repeating what they had done for Mrs. Miniver in 1942. This was Pidgeon's second and last nomination. They lost to Paul Lukas and Jennifer Jones in their respective categories. The film itself was nominated for Best Picture but lost to Casablanca.

What I like most about Madame Curie is that you don't need a degree in physics to understand what's happening. The actors, the direction by Mervyn LeRoy and the script all are at their best.

Look for up and coming MGM stalwarts like Robert Walker and Van Johnson to play brief roles. Easy to tell why both became stars.

I think Madame Curie and her husband would both have liked the way they were portrayed in this film.