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The Citadel

Retrospective 2020
© 1938 Turner Entertainment Co. All Rights Reserved.
After completing his training, Andrew Manson starts working as an apprentice doctor in a Welsh mining town. After resuscitating an apparently still-born baby, and helping to blow up a decaying sewage system that caused a typhoid epidemic, he moves to the neighbouring mining town of Aberalaw, where he becomes the colliery doctor. But he makes enemies with his research into black lung disease, and he and his wife Christine end up moving to London. After a rough start, he eventually joins the ranks of fashionable doctors treating the very rich. It is not until a good friend of his from Wales dies that he begins to examine his life … The film was based on the bestselling autobiographical novel by A. J. Cronin. But King Vidor’s first directing venture in Europe throws an even more intense spotlight on the discrepancies between the miserable sanitary conditions of the Welsh working class and the luxury of London’s high society, highlighting the glaring extremes in Britain’s class system. Made by MGM British at Denham Studios and on location, The Citadel became an exemplar for the social realism of British post-war cinema.
by King Vidor
with Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Richardson, Rex Harrison, Emlyn Williams, Penelope Dudley Ward, Cecil Parker, Francis L. Sullivan, Mary Clare, Nora Swinburne United Kingdom / USA 1938 English 113’ Black/White

With

  • Robert Donat
  • Rosalind Russell
  • Ralph Richardson
  • Rex Harrison
  • Emlyn Williams
  • Penelope Dudley Ward
  • Cecil Parker
  • Francis L. Sullivan
  • Mary Clare
  • Nora Swinburne

Crew

Director King Vidor
Screenplay Ian Dalrymple, Frank Wead, Elizabeth Hill
Story A. J. Cronin The Citadel (1937)
Cinematography Harry Stradling
Editing Charles Frend
Music Louis Levy
Art Director Lazare Meerson, Alfred Junge
Sound A. W. Watkins, C. C. Stevens
Assistant Director Pen Tennyson
Producer Victor Saville

Produced by

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios, Ltd. (A King Vidor Production)

Additional information

Print: Warner Bros. Pictures Germany, Hamburg