Customer Reviews

The Citadel [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Robert Donat, an excellent actor who made too few films, stars as a young English doctor who enters the profession with many ideals and dreams, but loses them along the path of his life. Rosalind Russell stars as the schoolteacher he marries that loves his ideals, while Ralph Richardson and Rex Harrison are doctors he befriends at different points in his life. Richardson believes in helping the regular man and that money is not important, while Harrison treats wealthy hypochondriacs in between fancy lunches and golf games. The message of the film is pretty obvious, and there are some slow parts. But the acting is fine, with special praise to Richardson who has a number of showy moments. It's one of those stories that reminds us that money isn't everything.

This is a wonderful screen adaptation of the classic novel that deals with a Doctor in Great Britain as he struggles with the entrenched medical establishment. The film is dated, of course, and may be a bit slow for modern tastes. The lead actors are mostly fine in their roles, although Robert Donat as Dr. Manson seems to be somewhat conflicted in his motivations. Rosalind Russell gives an excellent performance as Dr. Manson's highly-principled wife. Ralph Richardson does a great supporting turn as a flawed physician desperately trying to reclaim his humanity. His impassioned plea to Dr. Manson to join him in a preventative care group is one of the highlights of the film. A very young Rex Harrison does a nice job as a society doctor. Overall, this is a highly watchable film with a delighful cast and a relevant storeyline. I would highly recommend this film, especially to anyone in the medical profession.

The themes in "The Citadel" remain timeless because so many atrocities in medicine that existed in the Thirties ring true today. Andrew Manson (Robert Donat) is an idealistic doctor whose first assignment is in a Welsh mining town where typhoid runs rampant primarily due to the indifference of the local government to living conditions. Subsequently, he takes a position in another mining town where his practice is literally destroyed by prejudice and superstition. Disillusioned, he takes up practice in London where his only concern is overcharging his patients for minor procedures like ear piercings. Eventually he hooks up with a cadre of physicians whose only pleasure is fleecing the upper crust for real or imagined ailments. Manson could have been completely corrupted by the darker impulses of his profession if not for a tragedy that hits a little too close to home. Donat is superb in assaying the odyssey that Manson takes from wide-eyed idealist to cynical greedhound back to a man who clings to the principles of his profession. Ralph Richardson is equally good as the voice of reason and integrity for the medical profession. Rex Harrison is deliciously smarmy as a doctor more concerned with bilking his patients and hitting the links than actually treating the sick. Rosalind Russell as Manson's wife embodies the confusion of a woman who married a man out of admiration only to be seduced by the material gains his trade brings. The Thirties produced many great films and "The Citadel" sits proudly as one of them.

I thought Robert Donat's portrayal of Andrew Manson, a doctor at first thrilled by the act of healing and then later seduced by the easy money for caring for very wealthy - but more lonely and obsessed than sick - patients was superb. Rosalind Russell at first seemed like an unlikely choice for the female lead as Manson's wife, but she does a first-rate job and makes me believe that she is this quiet yet individualistic Welsh schoolmarm who falls for and marries the young doctor. Their courtship is touching, and the reason for the doctor's proposal to her makes for an awkward but sweet scene between the two. Ralph Richardson, in the years before he was given to largely playing various shades of scoundrel, is here the voice of medical ethics, bawdy though that voice may be.

The film's larger storyline was far from original, and you can pretty much see what direction the plot is going to take at each juncture as the film is neatly subdivided into three parts. I was therefore quite surprised to discover it was Oscar-nominated for its screenplay. I'd recommend this one mainly to watch the outstanding performances of Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell, and Ralph Richardson early in their careers as well as a very young Rex Harrison playing a rather devilish doctor in a supporting role.

The audio and video quality on this film are excellent - audio quite crisp and clear, the video with some marks here and there looks like it was cleaned up for a regular DVD release, though supposedly it was not. Do remember that this is a Warner Archive product. It is a DVD-R burn on demand product with no extras and no chapter stops. You may only go forwards and backwards in 10 minute increments.

This is a moving and beautifully acted film about a doctor who attempts to be a courageous and moral man in his practice. Robert Donat is superb as Andrew Manson-- a man who begins his career with dreams of healing people without any compromises, then later is challenged by the material temtations of his profession. This film is a great story and has an incredible scene at the end, reminiscent of the ending bridge scene in "Its a Wonderful Life". I recommend this movie highly!

"Citadel" is an interesting movie that explores the motivation of the medical profession. We see a young doctor report to his first job at a Welsh coal mining town. He has many challenges in his practice; ignorance, poverty, lack of support, etc.. Yet he finds not only confidence is being out there pretty much on his own, he also discovers real purpose in his profession. He researches what appears to be black lung disease and finds that no one will show any interest in his early findings. Still, he has discovered a new level of purpose and realizes that he must relocate to the city to pursue it. I guess I don't want to give away the whole plot of the movie. However, suffice it to say that money gradually becomes the motivation and we see a moral lesson evolve. The movie concludes with a summation of the issues.

This movie came out in 1938 when the medical profession was a lot different than it is now. However, the issues still seem to be with us. Living in a small rural community, we are aware that the doctors that come here are sacrificing much higher pay for some other perceived benefit. For some it is the great outdoors, for some it is the comparitively safer and quieter life style, for others it may be that, with limited skills, this is the only place that will have them. Yet there are several doctors who are top-notch and clearly not "in it for the money". I don't know if any of them saw "Citadel" but I'm glad they're here. "Citadel" helped me understand that.

Inspired in the unforgettable Ibsen `s work : "An enemy of the people" , a rural medic, despite all the hostilities from his colleagues and the miners attended by him, he will rather be in the town instead of to accept a promissory social position.

The egregious presence of King Vidor behind the camera constituted a true mark seal. And if you additionally consider the presence of this prominent actor and the solidity of a script, how can you loose with this movie?

One of the best films of the Thirties.

My doctor makes the book, The Citadel, required reading of all of his interns and for good reason. The movie version, as all films do, took a few liberties with the story, leaves out an important event, but overall portrays a fine interpretation of A. J. Cronin's story. Well worth the viewing.

I wish this film could be remade and set in the present. So many doctors are compromised today by drug companies and getting rich that a remake of this film could cause controversy. This 30s film is sometimes hard to watch because it's so dated and unrealistic. For example, the whirlwird courtship of Russell by Donat. It seems one moment they're arguing, next minute they're friends, and lo and behold, she immediately accepts his offer of marriage. Worse is the film's bloodless depiction of medical emergencies. For example, the birth scene is so laughably fake - you don't see the birth or the baby's face, only the sight of Donat slapping something off screen when the baby is born. Then we see him putting down what looks like a doll. Then, when he picks the "baby" and gives it CPR, the director just shows him blowing his breath at "something" off-screen! Unbelievable. Worse is the depiction of his friend's death. His mangled body (run over by a car) is not even shown on screen! We just see people crowded around "something" and a lot of gesturing. For a film about medicine and health, the Citadel is so bloodless that all the accidents and illnesses take on an abstract, unreal quality. Apparently the Production Code allowed illnesses to be shown only one way - that of a person covered by a bedsheet, sweating. The scene where the society playgirl throws a fit of hysteria was perhaps the only moment depicted graphically (ironic, since she was faking it). It is this lack of realism that I find hard to ignore, though the earnestness of the performances (Donat, Russell and Richardson are excellent) kept me watching. The squeamishness of the Code really did a number on the Citadel. What a shame.