The Citadel

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Mark B I need to stop writing "syrupy, melodramatic, and over-acted" for these 1930 films, because, unfortunately, I could apply that to just about any of them. I guess it was the nature of the time. Idealistic doctor gets successful and loses sight of his humble origins, reborn, blah blah blah. I do like that the ending isn't spelled out for us, however. [#450 on my "All Best Picture Nominees" bucket list] Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 08/18/24 Full Review Audience Member The Citadel is a fine and inspirational film about a dedicated young doctor and the hardships he has to overcome to see his destiny and move to fulfill it. A lot of the same ground was covered before in Arrowsmith and would be covered again in Not As A Stranger and then in over a dozen or more medical drama shows on television. Stories about medicine and its practice is a genre we will never tire of. Robert Donat plays the idealistic young doctor who is assigned a number of positions in Great Britain and the story is how he deals with the various situations he encounters. Along the way he picks up a wife in the person of Rosalind Russell. For an American to review this film probably one should have a knowledge of the British health system and remember this would have been before the days of the current health system of socialized medicine. That system was put in before the post World War II Labour government changed things. One of his assignments is a coalmining area in Wales and Donat because of his own integrity and commitment manages to make a whole bunch of enemies and has to leave. His assignment is in what might be described as an HMO run by the coal miner's union. He starts doing research in a chronic cough he notices several of the miners have and upsets a whole lot of applecarts both with labor and management. He also isn't so easy with giving sick slips to malingering workers and they don't come to his defense. Not easy at times to be an idealist. For a while Donat takes an easy road in a wealthy sanitarium that caters to upper class hypochondriacs. Doctors Felix Aylmer and Rex Harrison are getting rich themselves off them. But eventually Donat finds his true calling in research. Rosalind Russell said that working with Donat was a pleasure, but the film itself wasn't. She and Director King Vidor were the only Americans in this film and she and Vidor took a lot of criticism for taking jobs away from British players. Not like she had anything to say about it, MGM loaned her out there. Still she did her job without a trace of a British accent. Besides Aylmer and Harrison other noteworthy British players in the cast are Emlyn Williams and Francis L. Sullivan. Williams is one of the local union heads and Sullivan is a blustering boorish lout of a miner who leads the opposition to Donat's research. All of them do fine jobs and Harrison got his first real notice by American audiences in his role. Because for two generations we Americans have been awash with medical dramas all these situations seem all to familiar to us. That's a jaded point of view. The Citadel is a fine drama and worth seeing. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review ashley h The Citadel is a decent film. It is about an enthusiastic young doctor who happily embarks on his career. Robert Donat and Rosalind Russell give good performances. The screenplay is a little slow in places. King Vidor did an alright job directing. I liked this motion picture because of the drama. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review william d An excellent movie about an idealistic young doctor who loses his way, although I'll admit the plot device to get him back on track was pretty contrived. That didn't stop me from enjoying it though. Robert Donat is such a fine actor, it's a shame his health prevented him from making more movies. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Having recently read this classic British novel, I was keen to watch this movie version starring the great Robert Donat and magical Rosalind Russell. Directed by King Vidor, the story tells of a young, idealistic doctor who begins to practice medicine in a small, Welsh mining village. We follow his trials and tribulations as he battles against ignorance, tradition and ineptitude from both patients and his own professional colleagues. Gradually, he becomes disillusioned and makes the move to London where he becomes caught up in the disreputable world of high society doctors for whom image and money are more important than professionalism and scientific method. Based on the hugely influential book by AJ Cronin, which helped to inspire the formation of the NHS, the movie is a bit of a curate's egg. The first parts of the movie set in Wales stick closely to the book and whips rapidly through the key moments and incidences giving a good insight into the state of general practice in the UK in the post World War I period. However, once the action moves to London, the story departs, in some places radically, from the novel and, for me at any rate, suffers because of this. I can understand some editing of the novel would be needed for reasons of timing but the choices seem strange to me. It is also interesting from a historical point to note that a minor, but important character has her nationality changed from the German of the novel to the more acceptable Italian for the cinema audience in Britain of 1938. Clearly, at the time, any German lady running a delicatessen in London must have been a Nazi spy! Despite the quibbles over the second part of the film, this is still a worthwhile movie and has some great stalwarts of British acting including Ralph Richardson, Rex Harrison, Athene Seyler, Bernard Miles and Angela Baddeley. In fact part of the attraction of an old movie like these is spotting how many faces you recognise from TV of the 1960s and 70s. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/13/23 Full Review steve d Powerful acting carries the film. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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