Science in the Movies

On Fridays during the month of January Dr. Sean Michael Carroll, physicist at the California Institute of Technology, is hosting a film series, “Introduction to Science in the Movies”, on Turner Classic Movies. Here’s the list of movies that will be screened:

• Nobel Prize Winners

• The Man in the White Suit
• A Beautiful Mind

Rocket Science

• For All Mankind
• Countdown
• Marooned

Mad Scientists

• The Bride of Frankenstein
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

Scientists on a Mission

• The Thing (from Another World)
• Forbidden Planet
• Solaris

Aeorodynamics

• The Spirit of St. Louis
• Gallant Journey

Nuclear Physics

• Silkwood
• Beginning or the End
• These Are the Damned

Great Inventors

• Edison the Man
• The Magic Box

Applied Chemistry

• It Happens Every Spring
• The Man in the White Suit
• Bye Bye Birdie

Based on H.G. Wells

• First Men in the Moon
• The Time Machine (1960)

Medical Breakthroughs

• The Story of Louis Pasteur
• Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet
• Charly

Some of these movies are those that occurred to me immediately, e.g. The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Man in the White Suit. I don’t think that Edison the Man really qualifies because I think that Edison was an engineer rather than a scientist. A Beautiful Mind, Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet, and Madame Curie are great suggestions (on catching a bit of Madame Curie my wife wisecracked a trailer slogan that somehow never made it into the film’s actual promotion—”Greer Garson is radiant as Madame Curie!”).

Some of the pictures in the list are real stretches, e.g. The Spirit of St. Louis. I’d’ve picked David Lean’s 1952 The Sound Barrier. There’s a lot more real science in it. And Bye Bye Birdie? No explanation is given for its inclusion and the only explanation I can think of for its inclusion is that Albert actually wants to be biochemist.

I’d have substituted Frankenstein for Bride of Frankenstein but that’s a quibble. And I’d’ve replaced the execrable Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde with The Invisible Ray, which IIRC actually concludes with the line “there are some things that we were not meant to know”.

Although H. G. Wells is one of the foundational science fiction writers, there’s precious little science in his works. Actually, for Wells science is the MacGuffin in stories that are actually social commentary.

What movies would you have included in a film series on science in the movies?