The Citadel

The Citadel with Robert Donat and Rosalind Russell.  Robert Donat plays a doctor just out of medical school who begins as an assistant doctor for a mining company in Wales.  He does all the work and gets no respect, so he quits to be the company doctor in another mining town.  To win this job he pretends to be engaged, so he must propose to the attractive schoolteacher from the first town, played by an unusually taciturn Rosalind Russell.  He wins no friends in the new town and leaves to run his own practice in London.  After a year of not quite scraping by, he is introduced to the world of fleecing rich hypochondriacs by his old med school buddy, Rex Harrison.  Although now wealthy, Rosalind Russell liked him better as ethically intact but poor.  A tragedy involving his best friend turns him back to the proper path.

This movie was nominated for Best Picture, and now I have seen all but two of the nominees for MCMXXXVIII.  They are:
You Can't Take It with You (the winner)
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Alexander's Ragtime Band (top box office draw in 1938, edging out Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*)
Four Daughters
Jezebel
Pygmalion
Test Pilot
The Citadel

The two I haven't seen are Boys Town and Grand Illusion.

Sexy schoolmarm Rosalind Russell









*Snow White was released in late '37 so it is not on my list, but it pretty much ruled the box office for most of 1938.