1943 – Greer Garson
Madame Curie
Greer Garson played herself once again. You could easily transplant her into the exact same characters in some of her other films, and you’d never notice the difference. She had the same look, the same accent, the same cadences, the same facial expressions, the same attitude. She was just nice and wholesome, and not much else. There wasn’t a mean bone in her body, which matched her costar, Walter Pidgeon perfectly. There just wasn’t much to her character that stood out to me, and it made me wonder why she was nominated for best Actress.
But Greer’s part in this movie did have one saving grace for her, one deeply dramatic scene that had to have been the reason she was nominated for an Oscar. It was near the end, after Madame Curie learns that her husband has been killed in an accident involving two horses pulling a carriage. She went catatonic, refusing to eat or drink as she processed her new reality. The makeup on Garson made her look drab and sickly. The dead look in her eyes was something I have never seen from the actress. And then once her old friend leaves, she gets up and goes through a few special objects that brought up memories, and they have an effect on her. She turns away from the camera and begins sobbing and crying. It totally fit the scene and Garson was good.
I say good, but not great. First, she hid her face, so you couldn’t see her full unbridled emotional journey in her eyes. It was there, but it was hidden from the viewer, and I think I would have been more invested in Madame Curie’s pain if I could have seen her face. There was one other scene in the film where she showed a bit of strong emotion. She was angry when she thought that four years of difficult and tedious work had produced no results. Again, she was good there, but not great. And what’s more, I think that maybe she could’ve been better.
Like her costar, I am not convinced she should have been nominated for Best Actress, except that she appears to have given audiences what they wanted, good-natured wholesomeness that bordered on unrealistic. But that’s what she was good at. And I have to admit, she looked just as beautiful as ever, so that helped.