Robert Donat

  • The Citadel (1938)

    The Citadel (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) King Vidor was one of the major directors of the silent age but while his star dimmed significantly when the movies started talking, he still managed to create a few great sound movies. One of them is The Citadel, an adaptation of a then-red-hot novel railing against the medical establishment (plus ça change…). Here, a very likable Robert Donat takes on the role of a medical student who enters the workforce and finds out that the profession isn’t quite as idealistically satisfying as what he’d expected. Part drama, part coming-of-age, part medical thriller, part romance, part courtroom theatrics, The Citadel is a rather enjoyable blend of different subgenres in its story of a heroic doctor in a small mining town who diagnoses tuberculosis at a very inconvenient time for the mine. The plot clearly doesn’t stop there, but that’s the fun of it—Vidor’s surprising instincts leading him naturally to a novel-length story with twists, turns and significant changes for its protagonist. It’s hardly perfect (notably too long in its second half before reality comes back) but Rosalind Russel is there and Vidor demonstrates his touch for character-based drama. For classic cinephiles, The Citadel does fit right in with the other medical dramas of the 1930s.

  • Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

    Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) I approached this 1939 version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips tentatively, perhaps even dismissively. After all, I had already seen and not cared much for the 1969 musical remake—why should I feel any different about the original? But as it turns out, this is a classic case of the remake being considerably inferior to the original. Goodbye, Mr. Chips is far more effective played as straight drama, without songs getting in the way. It’s much shorter, focuses on the genial atmosphere of an English school whose founding predates the discovery of the American continent, gets a bit more leeway to feature its characters and feels more naturalistic in the way it throws tragedies and successes at the lead character. Much of the difference between the two movies is in execution, since the plots are virtually identical. But execution matters, as are the people chosen to execute. Robert Donat couldn’t be better here as the titular Mr. Chips, a teacher moving through decades in the span of two hours, from new teacher to elderly headmaster. Alongside him, Greer Garson in her screen debut is as likable as she should be—the romantic sequences between her and Donat are quite enjoyable. Toward the end, the film obviously reaches for the handkerchiefs as we get to leave a sympathetic character we’ve just met. Built to be inspiring and generally successful at its task, this 1939 version of Goodbye Mr. Chips remains the definitive version of the story.