New Jersey-Set Film 'Radium Girls' To Open In Select Theaters

ORANGE, NJ (Oct. 23, 2020) - The U.S. Radium Corporation factory that was located in Orange in the early 1920s provides the backdrop for Radium Girls, a new film in select theaters and virtual cinemas this Friday. The true story was adapted by filmmakers Lydia Dean Pilcher after co-director Ginny Mohler discovered the plight of female factory workers who were exposed to lethal amounts of toxic radium when little was known about the substance.

Inspired by true events at the New Jersey factory, the story follows fictional sisters who make a meager living painting glow-in-the-dark watch dials for one cent apiece. When Jo (Abby Quinn) falls mysteriously ill, Bess (Joey King) puts the pieces together and concludes that radium exposure is not only dangerous, but life-threatening, and makes it her mission to expose her employers' complicity. Bess warns co-workers against licking the point of their paint brushes to avoid ingesting the toxic substance, at first to no avail.

The award-winning film produced by Lily Tomlin takes the sisters and their unsuspecting co-workers on a quest for truth, evoking archetypes of women in the workplace and unfair labor practices.

After a year on the film festival circuit before being delayed by COVID-19 theater closures, the release of "Radium Girls" is timely at this point in the coronavirus pandemic. These brave girls question authority telling them everything is fine when it isn't. Misinformation puts their own health at risk daily, with seemingly nothing they can do to change it.

Director for the Science & Technology Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water Elizabeth Southerland spoke to the relevance of the film at a 2018 Tribeca Film Festival event.

“Just as the American Radium Company hid the Harvard study which found radiation sickness in the girls, our government is prohibiting EPA use of occupational and public health studies unless all privacy protections are waived and personal information is placed online for the industry to critique,” Southerland said. “Just as [they] hired bogus experts to support their false statements, our current government has replaced university scientists on EPA’s Science Advisory Boards with industry and state government scientists who are vocal opponents of environmental regulations.”

King emulates the bravery and power of the real women who stood up to a major corporation with so much at stake. She keeps the heart of "Radium Girls" beating, moving in and out of Bess’ frustration, confusion and anger with the ease of the seasoned actor she is.

True elements of the story are weaved into the narrative, including Harvard researchers who conducted - and concealed - radium experiments on behalf of the corporation in the 1920s. The characters are based loosely on real sisters involved in the New Jersey court case against the radium company which lied to its employees about the dangers of their jobs, but King and Quinn bring real heart and viscerally true emotion the film. Activists who guided the young women through their court case are also true to life.

“Just as the Radium Girls depended on people willing to speak the truth in order to get press coverage and legal action, all of us depend on that today to stop the current government from repealing worker protections and public health and safety rules,” Southerland said.

More than 100 dial painters died as a result of the harmful effects of radium, a substance they were told was not only safe, but good for them. Pilcher and Mohler humanize what could have been a footnote in labor history with their powerful new film, opening tomorrow.