Greer Garson is magnificent as Madame Curie

Movie Reviewed: Madame Curie, starring Greer Garson

Greer Garson is very touching in her role as one of the greatest role models for women in science. She performs this role with poise and elegance. Walter Pidgeon also offers a fine performance in the lead role as Pierre Curie. Originally, Madame Curie was to star Greta Garbo with George Cukor as director and Aldous Huxley as the writer, but MGM chose Greer Garson and Mervyn LeRoy. There was a great deal of pessimism on the part of MGM that a movie like this would have any impact on the box office during the war years, but the cast did a terrific job. Script writers Paul Osborn and Paul Rameau treated Eve Curie's biography of her parents with care and reverence. Melvyn LeRoy added beauty and drama for this splendid movie of one of the greatest scientist ever lived. Madame Curie is the only scientist who is awarded two Nobel Prizes, one for physics and another for chemistry.

Madam Curie meets her future husband at a dinner party hosted by her tutor: Initially Pierre is hesitant to let a woman work in his laboratory. Being shy and very conservative in his approach, he says that women do not fit into the role of a scientist. This would be a ghastly statement for a 1943 movie, although the movie is set in 1893. Some of the dialogues are a little startling and odd. For example, Before introducing Marie to his parents, he tells her "how much she will like his father," and further states that his "mother's quite gay - you'll enjoy them both!" When Pierre leaves the house in rain, Marie says, "Don't forget your rubbers!"

The film covers only part of her life, since it does not deal with her political activism to liberate her native Poland, and also her strong bonding with her sister and parents. The most touching part of the movie is when Pierre dies in a car accident in the main street of a busy shopping district, and the news of his death stuns Marie. This is a very sensitive and emotional situation that put one's mind in a state of deep shock; director Mervyn LeRoy handled this scene wonderfully.