CIMARRON – WINNER in 1932

Cimarron (RKO Pictures – 131min)
Directed by Wesley Ruggles
Starring Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, and Estelle Taylor
Genre: Western, History, Drama

When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes a leading citizen of the boom town of Osage. Once the town is established, however, he begins to feel confined once again, and heads for the Cherokee Strip, leaving his family behind. During this and other absences, his wife Sabra must learn to take care of herself and soon becomes prominent in her own right. It was adapted from the Edna Ferber novel of the same name.

Trivia: Released during one of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, it was initially a financial failure.

Also won: Best Art Direction (Max Rée), Best Writing in an Adaptation (Howard Estabrook)

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Cimarron (1931): Shira’s Take

To start with an oxymoron: for such a boring movie, Cimarron was interesting. Interesting enough that I could get past the fact that I couldn’t stand the two main characters (Richard Dix’s Yancey Cravat and Irene Dunne’s Sabra Cravat). Sabra is a whiny, ignorant, waspy, reactionary twit who only comes to her senses politically and occupationally because she is forced to. Forced to, of course, by her obnoxiously self-absorbed husband Yancey. See, Yancey is “progressive”–he believes that the Indians have the same rights that the white folk do (though this is inconsistent with his not wanting the family’s black attendant to join them in the church meeting). Still, he gets a thrill out of Manifesting Destiny. President signs a paper saying white folk can take the Cherokee panhandle of Oklahoma? See ya, wifey! Gotta go have an adventure with my buddies and not come back for five years! Honestly, though, Sabra’s change throughout the forty years from when they move to Osage, Oklahoma until the end of the movie is really phenomenal. Because her jerk of a husband leaves her with two kids to support, she becomes the anonymous editor of her husband’s newspaper and eventually even a congresswoman. The last twenty minutes of the movie really saved it for me in this way, though it did feel sort of cheap to have them bring the movie to modern times (1930) to show Sabra as an old, accomplished woman. Notes to myself: must.never.forget.Yancey’s.neighing. Did Sabra actually have a full taxidermied bird on her hat? 6/10

Cimarron (1931): Eitan’s Take

“That’s the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin’ itself down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands a time…” – The Stranger, The Big Lebowski

After falling asleep during the first attempt to watch Cimarron, I was incredibly surprised to watch the whole film and discover a truly beautiful, epic tale of American ego, discovery, fortitude, and development. Starting with a quest into the empty dustpan of Oklahoma, this absolutely great movie delves into the lives of two pioneers — one restless and the other reluctant — who settle in Osage, Oklahoma just as it is beginning to boom into a real town. Without any of the goofy “ain’t Oklahoma great” theatrics of, well, you know the musical, Cimarron shows how rough it really was to be a part of the fledgling society. Rampant racism, cold-hearted bandits, failed businesses, greedy politicians and sycophants, harlotry, an unjust social system… the list goes on and on. The inner bravado of protagonist Yancey Cravat — a newspaper editor, marshall, attorney, and all around town badass — acts as the motor for the story, which lacks the epic vistas of later John Ford westerns, but more than makes up for it with its epic sweep across forty years.

I was truly surprised at how affecting the movie was. It had the beautiful pacing of more modern epic historical dramas; over the span of just two hours, we watch Yancey and his wife transform from rascally adventurers to souls crushed by the wheels of time. Years pass by in instants, but the audience is given clues to understand what exactly those years had in store for these people. It is also one of the best depictions of the transformation from Westward Ho! ambition in the late 1800s to the mechanized ennui of the early 1900s. It’s amazing what our country left behind when we annexed the whole west and decided that pioneers — once the go-get-em soul of our young country — were obsolete old fools, deserving to die in a ditch in an oil field.

Overall, very impressive acting by the leads, especially in the courtroom scene and the church inauguration scene. It’s amazing how many messages about American identity and ambition they were able to cram into just two hours. I started out as a skeptic, but now I know why this won Best Picture; many, many historical/western films like it have won the award since, but this appears to be the first of its class. I give it an 8.