Madame Curie

Perennial co-stars Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon followed their triumph in the Oscar-winning Mrs. Miniver, with this memorable biographical classic. Garson portrays the young Polish physics student Marie, who soon falls in love with and marries Dr. Pierre Curie (Pidgeon), in whose lab she had worked. On their honeymoon they decide to investigate a strange effect Professor Becquerel (Reginald Owen) has noticed with the uranium/thorium stones for Marie's dissertation, and they determine there must be additional radioactive elements causing it. After years of experimentation in a makeshift lab at the University, they are finally able to isolate a few grains of a new element, radium, from 7 tons of raw material. Unfortunately, at the height of their success, tragedy strikes. The grand success of Madame Curie continued Garson's winning streak as one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1940s.