framptonhollis At first, "Madame Curie" left me bored and unentertained. However, as the film goes on it gets far better and enjoyable. There's some great performances scattered throughout the film, especially by the two leads, the great Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. I found their love story to be charming, emotional, and romantic and I enjoyed both of their characters.I also enjoyed the scientific aspect of the film. Because this film is based on the true story of Marie Curie, the scientist who, along with her husband, discovered the element radium and won the noble prize for doing so,there's quite a bit of scientific discussion that I found to be pretty fascinating. It's not often that classic romantic dramas contain a scientific angle.The film is also very well directed by master filmmaker Mervyn LeRoy, and it is overall recommended for fans of classic cinema and science history.

Leonard Kniffel I've watched a lot of Hollywood films with an eye for those that feature Polish or Polish-American characters. Paris in the early part of the last century is the backdrop for this beautiful love story starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, released in 1943 as World War II raged in Europe. My favorite parts are the references to Poland and the stubborn Polishness that made Marie Skłodowska one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. If you've never seen a Greer Garson film, or haven't seen one lately, she is one of the most beautiful and talented actresses Hollywood ever produced, and totally under- appreciated today. Listen for these lines: "She's a very obstinate girl," says Pierre Curie to his mother. "Well, after all, Poland is her home," the mother explains.

blanche-2 Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon star in "Madame Curie," the story of the famous scientist.Actually what is included in the film is quite accurate but much is left out, which is normal. The film begins with the Polish Marie meeting Pierre when she is a student in Paris and shares his laboratory. Both of them are too involved in their science careers to get married, but they fall in love and do marry.When Marie becomes interested in uranium rays, Pierre gives up his research, and the two work together. It's grueling, disappointing work, but they don't give up. The movie shows just how detailed and difficult it was in their makeshift lab.This is a beautiful film about a great woman. I happen to think Greer Garson is wonderful, as is Walter Pidgeon. They worked so well together, just as Marie and Pierre did - true partners. Of course, Marie is in her sixties (she died at 66) at the end of the film and looks 90. Typical Hollywood aging - either no aging or decrepit.Marie Curie, of course, didn't understand the dangers of radium and used to put isotopes in her pocket and in her drawer, and would comment on the light emitted from the drawer. She had several medical problems due to radiation poisoning and eventually died of it, as did her younger daughter and son-in-law. Strangely, her daughter Eva died in 2007 at the age of 103! Go figure. Eva chose Greer Garson to star in the film.If you want to look at Marie Curie's papers and books today - they are still radioactive and one has to wear protective clothing. Like Marie Curie, they still emit light.

Steffi_P Scientists are one of a number of professions whom over the years Hollywood has mercilessly stereotyped. In the movies, at best they have been charming but out-of-touch boffins, at worst cold-hearted and humourless beings. Madame Curie however is a rarity in that it shows scientific folk as being the dreamy, romantic types that they so often are in real life.Adapted by sci-fi novelist Aldous Huxley and others from the biography by Marie Curie's daughter Eve, the screenplay makes concession to the fact that Hollywood movies are designed for mass consumption. As such the scientific jargon is dumbed down, almost painfully. On the one hand technical talk is skipped over as babble (as in a not-so-discrete dissolve during Marie and Pierre's walk home together when she begins quizzing him over formulae) and, conversely, the protagonists seem implausibly clueless at times (the idea of the Curies dismissing the stain at the bottom of the bowl and taking days to realise it might be radium is laughable). But nevertheless it's impressive and rewarding the way the writers find ways of making real scientific concepts easily digestible, such as the discovery of radium focused in waiting for the right number to appear on a spectroscope.For the two lead roles MGM decided to re-team its star-couple of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, previously seen as Mrs and Mr Miniver in the previous year's Best Picture winner. Sadly they don't compare to their earlier incarnations, the interaction between them veering from wooden to melodramatic. However, as their on screen relationship develops the affection appears very real and touching. These aren't exceptional performances in their own right, but the rapport between the two of them is clear and effective.Thank goodness director Mervyn Leroy has the sense to direct this movie with steady delicacy, with long takes and measured performances giving the story the dignity and also the humanity it requires. There's a particularly nice moment where the Curies are by their daughter's bedside, Walter Pidgeon telling a story to little Margaret O'Brien, Garson sat silent and motionless between them, the camera dollying in, then out, upon her face as the emotion of the moment plays across it.Madame Curie is a far from perfect work, and Hollywood will probably never get science quite right. And yet this picture achieves a quite wonderful thing – a marriage between the magical romanticism of that great movie-making factory, and the equal yet misunderstood allure of scientific endeavour. The common ground exists, and Madame Curie treads it.