Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 23: Good Clean Fun

Another life story in the challenge and this time it's of Louis Pasteur, the man who challenged doctors to wash their hands and clean their instruments before operations. The film kicks of in 'A Doctor's Office in Paris' which it very blatantly isn't where a doctor is shot by an angry man who blames his wife's death on that doctor after reading Pasteur's leaflet about doctors having to wash their hands. Pasteur is banned from the scientific community but ten years later he is bought in to try and help come up with a cure against anthrax. There follows some bizarre experiment which involved killing a lot of sheep in order to prove Pasteur right or wrong. These scenes I felt were far too long given what we know already that Pasteur did succeed. The final part of the film looks at how Pasteur tried to work out a cure for rabies and hydrophobia as a lot of people were being bitten by mad dogs, thanks to an uppity scientist braggingly injecting himself with the disease, Pasteur managed to work it out. At the end of the film everyone celebrates Pasteur's achievements. There is also a nice subplot involving Pasteur's family which I think was a darn sight more interesting. As he took more time developing these cures he spent less time with his wife and daughter meanwhile Pasteur's apprentice begins a relationship and later marries, Pasteur's daughter who in turn is frustrated with her new husband's busy hours although domestic bliss is always kept and nothing ever becomes of Pasteur's negligence of his family, obviously in those days women just grin and bore it.

Although this is basically your standard biopic, the film is lifted up a notch by Paul Muni's performance in the lead role, for which he won the Best Leading Actor Award. The film also won Best Screenplay (which was okay but a bit sketchy) and Best Director, which to be fair was deserved this was a very well-directed piece. Although it lost out to The Great Ziegfeld for Best Picture which is understandable really it couldn't really compete with the spectacle of that film. But The Story of Louis Pasteur is still an accomplished film for the era with a well-judged and professional lead performance.