Madame Curie *** (1943, Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon) – Classic Movie Review 12,608

Director Mervyn LeRoy’s smooth and affecting 1943 MGM black and white drama film Madame Curie stars Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon in the fourth of their nine onscreen pairings.

MGM’s typically lush and romantic biopic of Marie Curie, the woman who discovered radium, comes complete with a jolly cast to deflect from the lack of wartime escapism that audiences were seeking.

Greer Garson stars as Polish-French physicist Marie Curie, who begins to share a laboratory with her future husband, Pierre Curie (Walter Pidgeon) in 1890s Paris.

The Random Harvest team –star Garson, director LeRoy, producer Sidney Franklin –returns for another smooth and affecting picture. Garson’s Mrs Miniver co-stars are here too –Pidgeon, Dame May Whitty and Henry Travers as Marie Curie’s husband and parents.

The writers – Paul Osborn, Paul H Rameau and Aldous Huxley – treat Eve Curie’s book about her mother with an excess of respect. There were seven Oscar nominations, including best actor, actress and picture, but, surprisingly, no wins.

Greer Garson was incredibly popular but not everyone liked her. An American critic called Garson a ‘queenly horror’.

Garson received seven Academy Award nominations, winning for Mrs Miniver (1942).

She is the fourth most-nominated woman for the Best Actress Oscar, including a record-tying (with Bette Davis) five consecutive nominations (1941–1945) in the actress category.

Her nominations are: 1940 Best Actress Goodbye, Mr Chips, 1942 Blossoms in the Dust, 1943 Mrs Miniver, 1944 Madame Curie, 1945 Mrs Parkington, 1946 The Valley of Decision, and 1961 Sunrise at Campobello.

Garson and Pidgeon appeared in nine movie collaborations: Blossoms In the Dust (1941), Mrs Miniver (1942), The Youngest Profession (1943) in cameos, Madame Curie (1945), Mrs Parkington (1944), Julia Misbehaves (1948), That Forsyte Woman (1949), The Miniver Story (1950), and Scandal at Scourie (1953).

The cast are Greer Garson as Marie Curie, Walter Pidgeon as Pierre Curie, Henry Travers as Eugène Curie, Albert Bassermann as Professor Jean Perot, Robert Walker as David Le Gros, C Aubrey Smith as Lord Kelvin, Dame May Whitty as Madame Eugene Curie, Victor Francen as President of University, Elsa Bassermann as Madame Perot, Reginald Owen as Dr Becquerel, Van Johnson as Reporter, Margaret O’Brien as Irène Curie (at age 5), Lisa Golm as Lucille, George Davis, Harold de Becker, Al Ferguson, Edward Fielding, Linda Lee Gates, Dorothy Gilmore, Ilka Gruning, Lumsden Hare, Teddy Infuhr, James Kirkwood, Gene Lockhart, Alan Napier, Moroni Olsen, Gigi Perreau, Francis Pierlot, Almira Sessions, Arthur Shields, Wyndham Standing, Ray Teal, Charles Trowbridge, Michael Visaroff, Marek Windheim, Frederick Worlock, and Eustace Wyatt, and James Hilton as Narrator (voice).

It screens unedited on Turner Classic Movies at 124 minutes but several versions of the film cut down or edited out its scientific aspects.

Budget $1,938,000. Box office $4,610,000. A profit for MGM of $1,086,000.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,608

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