Les Palmes de M.Schutz (1997) **

Not surprisingly, this film about Marie and Pierre Curie's discovery of radioactivity is informative and erudite. But surprisingly, it's also quite funny. There are bits involving secret formulas of vodka, ways of dispatching Russian soldiers to Siberia and the smuggling of powder to the Polish resistance. A huge spoonful of humor makes history, physics and chemistry so much easier to swallow.