The Genius and the Boys (movie)
- User score: 6
- Production country: Sweden
- Producer: Bosse Lindquist
- Production companies: ARTE GEIE, BBC Storyville, DR-Dokumentar, Eight Millimetres, SVT Dokumentär, Svenska Filminstitutet
- Genre: TV Movie, Documentary
- Release date: 6/1/2009
- Run time: 89 min.
Movie description
D Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of Prions - the particles that would emerge as the cause of Mad Cow disease - while working with a cannibal tribe on New Guinea. He was a star of the scientific world. Over his years working amongst the tribes of the South Seas, he adopted 57 kids, bringing them to a new life in Washington DC. His adoptions were hailed as wonderful fatherly beneficence. But, at the height of his career, rumours began to spread he was a paedophile. Gajdusek would argue that if sex with children was okay in their own cultures, he wasn't wrong to join in. How could a great mind like Gajdusek's lose insight so totally, and why would the scientific community to which he was a hero be so quick to leap to his defence and dismiss the allegations? (Storyville)
Actors
