The Citadel

The Citadel (King Vidor, 1938) Dr. Andrew Manson (Robert Donat) gets off the train at the Welsh mining town of Blaenly in which he's been employed as an assistant, only to find the doctor he's working for, Page, is himself, lain up in bed. Not a good sign. He finds that in his new job he's poorly paid, and only has a small room to live in. And—as always in small towns—nobody trusts the new doctor or vet or priest or shopkeeper or whatever until he does them a good turn that seems miraculous. In small towns, trust is earned and then spread by word-of-mouth, just like a communicable disease.

 

That miraculous moment doesn't occur until, when he is called to a miner's home to deliver a child, he is confronted with the woman already having given birth, the child stillborn. But, Manson is able to resuscitate it and, for awhile, there is that trust in the community. Passed by word of mouth, trust is also communicable in small villages. He makes the acquaintance of another doctor, Denny (Ralph Richardson), who has been dealing with these issues longer and is quite cynical, a cynicism which is self-medicated with a healthy dose of alcohol. "No hospital, no X-ray, no ambulance, no anything. If you want to operate you use the kitchen table." The two compare notes on a pernicious cough that veteran miners have displayed while the two take patient calls.

A typhus epidemic, however, erupts throughout the town, devastating the community, and the two idealistic doctors decide that the best remedy is fight the source, trying to convince the mine owners of the danger of the sub-par sewer system, and then, when rebuffed, they decide to go to extremes, prescribe themselves some civil disobedience and blow it up, forcing the "do-as-little-as-possible" owners to have to replace it. The mine-owners had evidently taken a hypocritical oath. Denny tells Manson of a position to be filled in the mining town of Aberalaw, but holds little hope of being accepted as he's not a married man. Well, that's a bit of a problem. What's the remedy?

Well, it so happens the good doctor has made the acquaintance of the local school mistress, Christine Barlow (Rosalind Russell), who's seen the good works the doctor provides her students, and the two decide to (for the betterment of Aberalaw, of course!) get hitched. The two work together, helping patients by day and by night studying the debilitating effects the mining industry has to the lungs of the community. He publishes his findings which are hailed by the medical community, but the miners—much like the mine-owners in Blaeny—are more concerned with how their livelihoods might be affected. So, they take a note from the doctor's past and before he can (maybe) blow up the mine, they ransack his office...because...the studies they don't like have already been published. Angry mobs are not so much concerned with timing. This is why they are miners and not scientists (rocket or otherwise).

Well, being the pariah of the community doesn't do much for one's medical practice no matter how altruistic, so doctor and wife move to London, deciding to set up a clinic in one of the city's poorer districts, because...hippocratic oath and humanitarianism and all that bleeding heart stuff (come to think of it, that's something I would call a doctor for!) And this is where the movie gets very interesting because at some point, he is persuaded by a school-friend of his (played by Rex Harrison) to specialize in diseases of the rich and hypochondriacal—which is sort of a communicable disease among doctors...it doesn't blacken the lung so much as the soul.

Okay, it's 2022 and you're SO SUPERIOR for pointing out that a doctor specializing 

in Black Lung Disease is so smoking so cavalierly.

How will it turn out? Will the doctor heal himself of his over-charging frivolous ways to patients who'll pay through the nose (or any other orifice), or will he go back to helping the poor who resent him for trying to help them with things they don't want help with?

 

Do you want the movie answer, or the "real-world" answer?

 

See it twice and call me in the morning.

Northwest Passage: Book 1 - Roger's Rangers

Northwest Passage: Book 1- Roger's Rangers (King Vidor, 1940) The posters warned Northwest Passage was "Not Suitable for Children" which it might be, with its stories of atrocities, men who fight with muskets and axes, and the "good of the many" philosophy. But, it's such a "Boy's Own" adventure...if "for" adults...that one is tempted to dismiss the warning. But, one does so at their peril.

It's 1759, during the French and Indian Wars (look it up) in North America, and young Langdon Towne (Robert Young) has come back to Portsmouth, New Hampshire from Harvard (after being expelled) to ask the hand of his sweetheart, Elizabeth Browne (Ruth Hussey). Bad timing. Beyond that, Dad Browne, a clergyman, thinks Towne's profession, an artist, is a poor prospect for his precious daughter, and Langdon, rebuffed, goes out and does what any young man would do under the circumstances—he goes out to the local pub and insults the local British constabulary...who just so happen to overhear him from the next room. With the help of "Hunk" Marriner (Walter Brennan), friend and fellow flagon-drainer, the two manage to get in a fight with the two red-coats (to avoid being arrested) and are soon on the lam.

On the lam to another bar, that is. If Mr. Browne thought Langdon was lousy husband material before, it's a good thing he isn't around to look down his nose at this. At that rustic pub, they meet Major Robert Rogers (Spencer Tracy) who treats the two fugitives to his favorite drink, "Flip," and tales of his explorations. The stories are very good, but the rum must be better, because the next morning they wake up at Fort Crown Point as recruits for Rogers' latest mission—to take on the Abenakis native tribe and stop the French at the town of St. Francis, the starting point for a lot of attacks on "civilized" settlements. Langdon's secondary mission, and apparent only usefulness, is to map the route for future expeditions...and posterity. 

That is...if he survives. That trek is arduous, even without the man-made hazards along the way (director Vidor filmed in the wilds of Idaho), which are recounted in vivid excruciating detail. 142 men start on the mission, which starts out with the best of intentions and the best of planning, but Nature has a way of upending plans and what Nature doesn't delay, men and happenstance will.

After taking whaling boats up Lake Champlain, Rogers and troop hoofs it to make their way up to St. Francis, fully expecting to be able to meet up with the boats at the end of the expedition and fully expecting for their provisions to last the journey...with hunting being the fall-back. But rifle-fire will give away their position, so they have to make do with rationing what they have and what they haven't lost. Men are lost to attack and to injury, and rather than continue with the troop, slowing them down and leaving them vulnerable, they are merely left...to fend for themselves or die trying...or not trying.

It's a more dangerous version of The Lost Patrol, with the men gradually being picked off, moving forward even when they're convinced they have no chance of success, their return-boats and extra provisions stolen, and finally making it to St. Francis, where they stage an attack so intense and complete that they've become indistinguishable—in methods and ferocity—from the very people they've condemned as savages. There is no parsing for cause or motivation. It's just "kill 'em quick and kill 'em dead" where by flintlock, bayonet or tomahawk, and, just as with the men they've left behind, there's no time for funerals. If there's any message to be sent it's in the mutilated bodies and burning village.

But, that burning village is sure to be noticed from a distance. And with their left-behind provisions already taken and no food to be had except for dried corn in the village, the Rangers attempt to get to the closest fort, Fort Wentworth, and hope that they're met by re-enforcements and food. In the hope that they can find fishing and game, they head to Fort Wentworth by way of Lake Memphremagog, only to find they shouldn't tarry as there are signs that the French are nearby. Staggering behind them is Langdon, shot during the battle at St. Francis ("First thing I've had in my stomach for days...") and unwilling to be left behind.

Leave it at that. The travails of Northwest Passage only get worse—and even plunge deep into the macabre as mutiny, insanity and cannibalism all work against Rogers' increasingly hollow "only a few miles left, men" optimism. "A Boys Own" adventure? Hardly. It is tough, unrelenting in its depiction and description of the hard-scrabble life and "take no prisoners" racial hatred in the early "civilized" days of the country. And despite its eye-popping photography, the expense of the location Technicolor work kept the movie from making a profit and cancelled any attempts to make a "Book 2." Still, an interesting, troubling, starkly surprising film that makes you amazed at what "they" got away with back in the studio days.