Madame Curie (1943)

Fresh from their successful pairing in “Mrs Miniver”, Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon join forces for a melodrama about the French scientists who worked tirelessly to discover radium. Why, you might ask? Well, their friend had alerted them to the fact that a certain rock he found is capable of glowing in the dark? They know it isn’t one of the already identified elements and so Pierre Curie and his research assistant and soon to be wife Marie set about trying to get to the bottom of things. This is an onerous process with little backing from their peers, and indeed when Mme. Curie starts to see some ill effects that could suggest cancer, they begin to wonder if they shouldn’t just abandon the whole thing. Rather intuitively, though, they conclude that if this substance can kill healthy cells then maybe it can also nobble malevolent ones too? Now what ensues is actually quite a tough film to watch as their manual labours and sacrifices are really quite powerfully portrayed amidst frozen and rudimentary conditions in a glorified shed. There’s a solid chemistry between the two stars, the film’s production design is convincing and it obliquely looks at issues of sexism and establishment scepticism too. Speculative, sure, but quite enjoyable.