Recent research has appropriately emphasized the significant role played by feature films in the creation (as well as the reflection) of popular stereotypes of the scientist. However, no particular study has yet been devoted to the depiction of women scientists in the cinema, even though it is quite clear that this presents its own distinctive features. Taking the influential Madame Curie (Mervyn LeRoy, 1943) as a starting point, this paper attempts to give a first overview of the subject.
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References
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LaFollette, M. C. , 1990, Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910-1955 (University of Chicago Press), p. 78.
2.
LaFollette, M. C. , 1990, Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910-1955 (University of Chicago Press), p. 90.
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The book was immediately translated into several languages and became very widely known. In the USA it was published in 1938 by Doubleday and sold more than a million copies, in spite of already having appeared in serial form in the Saturday Evening Post (in eight instalments in September and October 1937).
4.
Curie, E. , 1937, Madame Curie (Paris, Gallimard), p. 7.
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Curie, E. , 1937, Madame Curie (Paris, Gallimard), p. 226.
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Curie, E. , 1937, Madame Curie (Paris, Gallimard), p. 113 [emphasis added].
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Curie, E. , 1937, Madame Curie (Paris, Gallimard), p. 101.
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Curie, E. , 1937, Madame Curie (Paris, Gallimard), p. 117.
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Curie, E. , 1937, Madame Curie (Paris, Gallimard), pp. 120-121.
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Curie, E. , 1937, Madame Curie (Paris, Gallimard), p. 216.
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Galerstein, C. L. , 1989, Working Women on the Hollywood Screen: A Filmography (New York, London: Garland), p. XVII.
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See also Elena, A., 1993, Exemplary lives: biographies of scientists on the screen. Public Understanding of Science, 2(3), 205-223.
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monographic issue of Arbor, 145(569), 17-37.
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as well as Dumont, H., 1994, William Dieterle: antifascismo y compromiso romántico (San Sebastián, Madrid: Festival Internacional de Cine-Filmoteca Española), p.145.
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Its repercussions are well recounted in Kevles, D. J., 1978, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (New York: Knopf), pp. 204-220.
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and Dunaway, D. K., 1989, Huxley in Hollywood (New York: Harper & Row), pp. 85-87, 102-103.
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Letter to Julian Huxley, 18 November 1938; in Smith, G., 1969, Letters of Aldous Huxley (New York: Harper & Row), p.437.
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and also in Bensaude-Vincent, B., 1987, Langevin: Science et vigilance (Paris: Belin), pp. 36-39.
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Dunaway, D. K. , 1989, Huxley in Hollywood (New York: Harper & Row), p. 102.
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Loos, A. , 1951, A Mouse is Born (New York: Doubleday), p. 28.
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reprinted in Von Deutschland nach Hollywood: William Dieterle (1893-1972) (Berlin: Deutsche Kinemathek, 1973), pp. 5-6.
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Letter to Julian Huxley, 18 November 1938, in Smith, G., 1969, Letters of Aldous Huxley (New York: Harper & Row), p.437.
23.
Huxley and Fitzgerald never worked together on the script for Madame Curie. All the evidence indicates that Fitzgerald arrived on the project after Huxley had been dismissed: see Clark, V. M., 1987, Aldous Huxley and Film (Metuchen, London: Scarecrow), p. 34.
24.
Quoted in Latham, A., 1971, Crazy Sundays: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood (New York: Viking), p. 203. Extract from a note of Fitzgerald's dated 7 November 1938, kept in the Metro Goldwyn Mayer archives.
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Latham, A. , 1971, Crazy Sundays: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood (New York: Viking), pp. 201-206.
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Latham, A. , 1971, Crazy Sundays: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood (New York: Viking), pp. 198-199.
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Schatz, T. , 1988, The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (New York: Pantheon), p. 362.
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Wood, M. , 1975, America at the Movies (New York: Basic Books), p. 64.
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Not suprisingly, Eve Curie felt well satisfied with the results, according to Mervyn LeRoy's autobiography, 1974, Take One (London, New York: W. H. Allen), p. 151.
30.
quoted in Latham, A., 1971, Crazy Sundays: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood (New York: Viking), p. 211.
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quoted in Latham, A., 1971, Crazy Sundays: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood (New York: Viking), p. 211.
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Latham, A. , 1971, Crazy Sundays: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood (New York: Viking), pp. 209-210.
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LeRoy, M. , 1974, Take One (London, New York: W. H. Allen), p. 151.
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Decker, R. G. , 1959, Plays for Our Time (New York).
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Marie's reaction to Pierre's death is described by Eve Curie, 1937, Madame Curie (Paris: Gallimard), pp. 199-201.
36.
quoted by Shortland, M., 1987, Reel Lives: Scientific Biography on Film (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Communications Seminar), p. 14.
37.
Decker, R. G. , 1959, Plays for Our Time (New York), p. 80.
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Joannou, M. , and McIntyre, S., 1983, Lust for lives. Screen, 24(4-5), 147.
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Shortland, M. , 1987, Reel Lives: Scientific Biography on Film (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Communications Seminar), p. 12.
40.
Quoted by Robinson, D., 1976, Scientists of the silver screen. New Scientist, 72(32), 734.
