In 1939, Robert Donat won an Oscar for his performance as an idealistic teacher in Goodbye, Mr. Chips. A year earlier, he earned an Oscar nomination for his lead role in 1938’s The Citadel, a film in which he played an idealistic doctor.

That’s range!

When he finishes medical school, Dr. Andrew Mason (Donat) serves the poor citizens of Welsh mining towns. There he fights to improve their health and working conditions.

When these struggles hit insurmountable resistance, Andrew decides to chase money and opens a London practice that serves wealthy clients. Along with wife Christine (Rosalind Russell), Andrew needs to decide if he wants to heal patients or just make a buck.

Though I waxed snarky about Donat’s dramatic range at the start of this review, I must admit he pulls off the demands of Citadel well. The film requires that he transition from idealistic healer to cynical moneygrubber and inevitably back again.

This shift sounds cliché on the surface – and it is. Nonetheless, Donat makes Andrew’s evolution seem natural and without the abrupt changes in personality that another actor might’ve brought to the role.

Donat’s grasp of the part helps allow Citadel to also feel less sappy than I anticipated. As a movie about a caring doctor, one assumes we’ll get a high level of schmaltz.

That factor escalated via the way the movie makes Andrew and Christine a couple. In time-honored Hollywood fashion, they “meet cute” and dislike each other from the start before the story comes up with a contrived way to link them romantically.

Indeed, those parts of Citadel seem so absurd that they briefly threaten to derail the movie. However, the film doesn’t dilly-dally with this side of the tale long so the viewer can easily get past the ridiculous plot points.

Christine becomes something of a weak link, mainly because the narrative doesn’t allow her to evolve into much more than a lovely version of Jiminy Cricket. Christine exists as Andrew’s conscience, especially as he forgets the noble reasons he became a doctor and embraces greed.

It would be nice if Citadel turned Christine into a more fleshed-out role. However, since the movie so fully revolves around Andrew, this doesn’t become a major issue.

Again, Donat handles the lead role so well that not much else tends to matter. I also like Ralph Richardson’s turn as Andrew’s practical colleague, and we get an interesting performance from Rex Harrison as the doctor who encourages Andrew to embrace money over service.

Citadel comes with more than a few clichés, but it fares better than the average movie of this sort. We get a bracing little drama.

The Citadel appears in an aspect ratio of 1.37:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Warner Archives’ Blu-rays are pretty much money in the bank, and this became another winner.

Sharpness satisfied overall. Only a few instances of softness materialized, so the film usually appeared well-defined and accurate.

Jagged edges and moiré effects caused no problems. Edge haloes remained absent, and with a layer of fine grain, I suspected no issues with noise reduction.

Black levels seemed nicely deep and dark, and contrast was appropriately displayed. The movie showed a good silvery look, and shadow detail was also concise and developed.

Source flaws failed to become an issue. The transfer eliminated those defects and left this as a clean presentation. I felt very happy with this appealing transfer.

As for the film’s DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack, it replicated the original material with positive quality. Dialogue seemed fine for its era, and was relatively crisp and well-defined with no signs of edginess or problems related to intelligibility.

In terms of the score, it was acceptably broad and clear. The material presented little low end but the dynamics were fine for a track of this vintage.

Though effects were similarly dated, they seemed adequately clean and realistic, and no aspects of the mix displayed signs of distortion. Background noise failed to become an issue. All in all, the audio worked fine for its age.

In addition to the film’s trailer, the disc includes three vintage shorts. We find The Ship That Died (10:09), Strange Glory (10:37) and The Daffy Doc (7:02).

With Died, we get a very brief telling of the mystery of an abandoned vessel by Cat People director Jacques Tourneur that explores theories about what happened. Saddled with clumsy narration, it feels like a feature film chopped down to a much-abbreviated length.

Also from Tourneur, Glory explores another “historical mystery”, one that looks at the true authorship of the Civil War “Tennessee Plan”. Like Died, Glory seems less than effective.

Finally, Doc features Daffy Duck as a doctor who intentional injures Porky Pig to help his medical practice. Daffy’s fifrh cartoon, this one shows him as a work in progress but it creates an amusing reel.

As a depiction of a doctor torn between idealism and wealth, The Citadel works surprisingly well. Thanks to a strong lead performance from Robert Donat, the movie skirts its clichés most of the time to develop into a good drama. The Blu-ray comes with appealing visuals, appropriate audio and a small mix of bonus features. Chalk up Citadel as a pleasant surprise.