THE CITADEL (1938) B/W 112m dir: King Vidor

w/Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Richardson, Rex Harrison, Emlyn Williams, Penelope Dudley Ward, Francis L. Sullivan, Mary Clare, Cecil Parker, Nora Swinburne, Edward Chapman, Dilys Davis, Athene Seylor, Felix Aylmer, Percy Parsons, Basil Gill, Joyce Bland, P.K. Reeves, Joss Ambler

A.J. Cronin's novel about a young and dedicated Scottish physician who almost loses his way in life is a beautifully acted and directed gem. Donat is particularly splendid, and there are plenty of human and dramatic elements to the story.

From the Monarch Film Series book, King Vidor, written by John Baxter, who interviewed Vidor extensively about his films: "In the mid-thirties, the British government moved belatedly to stop the erosion of its film industry by foreign producers, demanding that a large percentage of money earned in its cinemas be ploughed back into local production. The effort would soon enough be reduced to the cranking out of primitive 'quota quickies' but MGM, the biggest earner in the country, who now found millions of dollars 'blocked' there, was anxious to 'show willing' and, with some publicity, signed generous contracts for British productions and stars. Among the first actors to sign was Robert Donat, whose deal promised him $63,000 per film for six films --- the contract was open dated, since Donat was often unable to work because of asthma --- the first of them to be A.J. Cronin's The Citadel. Despite poor health, Donat gave a good performance as the doctor who develops from a bumbling locum in a Welsh mining village to a Harley Street specialist in the diseases of the rich, then gives it all up to work with a brilliant but unqualified 'quack' on the pioneering fringes of medicine. The first half is rich and precise; young Manson peering excitedly from the train as glimpses of mining life reel by, contending with the meanness and ignorance of Welsh village life before colluding with a fellow doctor (gleefully overplayed by Ralph Richardson) to blow up the sewer which causes its chronic diseases. Thereafter, The Citadel is only fitfully effective, with Rosalind Russell obviously uncomfortable as his schoolteacher wife, and the detail of a London physician's life sketched in with a shabbiness emphasizing the gap between British technique and the skill of Hollywood. Vidor is at his best in the set pieces, notably a mining rescue which dramatizes his fear and awe at the industrial process, but the Academy Award nominations for his direction and the script, by Ian Dalrymple, Frank Wead and his wife, Elizabeth Hill Vidor, were probably political."

THE CITADEL also received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Actor (Donat).