Romance of Radium main backdrop
Romance of Radium main poster

Romance of Radium

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6.0/10 • 13

1937-10-230h 10m

HistoryDrama

Romance of Radium is a 1937 American short film directed by Jacques Tourneur, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This short film tells the story of the discovery of radium and how it is used in medicine. In 1937, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject (One-Reel) at the 10th Academy Awards

Directors
Jacques Tourneur
Writters
N. Gayle Gitterman, Richard Goldstone

Top Billed Cast

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  1. Pete Smith

    Pete Smith

    Narrator (voice)

  2. Margaret Bert

    Margaret Bert

    Nurse (uncredited)

  3. André Cheron

    André Cheron

    Henri Antoine Becquerel (uncredited)

  4. James Conaty

    James Conaty

    American Scientist (uncredited)

  5. Eddie Hart

    Eddie Hart

    Photographer (uncredited)

  6. Emmett Vogan

    Emmett Vogan

    Pierre Curie (uncredited)

Reviews1

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CinemaSerf Avatar

CinemaSerf

Jun 29, 2025

6/10

It’s odd to hear Pete Smith delivering a more straight narrative, but he does it quite authoritatively as we see a few historical scenarios that illustrate just how the accidental discovery of an element that glowed in the dark led Marie Curie to discover this highly toxic element that was amongst the rarest on earth. It needed a mammoth degree of refining from it’s source ore to yield the tiniest amount of it’s salt but this process revealed, somewhat miraculously, that despite it’s lethal qualities it also had remarkable curative powers, too! It’s quite a revelatory short feature this that demonstrates just how much luck and sheer determination, especially at times in history when technology didn’t exist, was involved and the significant levels of danger faced by those who experimented with this newfound chemical. Indeed, throughout it’s development there were many fatalities amongst the scientific community as the potential of radium was explored. Many of these science features can be terribly dry and uninteresting, but this one stays quite watchable for ten minutes.

Media

  • Romance of Radium poster
  • Romance of Radium poster

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
--
Revenue
--
Keywords
radiumshort film