Cimarron (1931): Best Picture/AFI Post #1

Cimarron (USA 1931 35m)

d Wesley Ruggles; p William LeBaron, Wesley Ruggles; w Howard Estabrook, Edna Ferber (novel); c Edward Cronjager; ad Max Ree; fe William Hamilton; m Max Steiner

Richard Dix (Yancey Cravat), Irene Dunne (Sabra Cravat), Estelle Taylor (Dixie Lee), Edna May Oliver (Mrs. Tracy Wyatt), George E. Stone (Sol Levy), William Collier Jr. (The Kid), Stanley Fields (Lon Yountis), Robert McWade (Louis Hefner), Eugene Jackson (Isaiah)

Cimarron won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Art Direction, and Writing, Adaptation in 1931. It was also nominated for Best Cinematography. Wesley Ruggles was nominated for Best Director, Richard Dix was nominated for Best Leading Actor, and Irene Dunne was nominated for Best Leading Actress.

I was excited to see this film for multiple reasons. For one thing, I've heard multiple times from different sources that it is the worst film to win the Best Picture statuette, and since I personally believe that Forrest Gump is the worst film to ever win and will remain the worst film for decades to come, I had to make sure that one of the most disregarded of the lot wasn't actually worse. After watching Cimarron, I remain resolute in my Forrest hating convictions.

Secondly, the film is an adaptation of an Edna Ferber novel. Ferber wrote the plays that Dinner at Eight and Stage Door were adapted from as well as the novel Show Boat is adapted from. Also, the film was Irene Dunne's first major role, and I'm while I'm not terribly familiar with her as an actress, I loved her in Show Boat and My Favorite Wife.

Cimarron tells the story of the Cravats, the gentleman pioneer Yancey and his long suffering wife Sabra. It also tells the story of Oklahoma after the Indian reservations were made available in the first Land Rush. The movie starts just before the gun signaling the beginning of the Rush, and we meet Yancey who has his sights set on one particular parcel of land. Unfortunately, he tells a female competitor who snatches it up in a cavalier fashion. Having failed, he returns to Wichita, collects his wife and son Cim (and unintentionally Isaiah, a black teenaged servant), and returns to set up a newspaper in the dirty, savage town of Osage, Oklahoma. The film follows that trials and tribulations of the family through the decades.

With the exception of all the talking, the beginning feels just like a silent film. The visual spectacle of the chaotic land run reminded me of the battle scenes and cavalry charges of The Birth of a Nation and Battleship Potemkin. Every individual scene works as a moving painting, set up compositionally for thrills and whimsy.

The acting (especially that of Richard Dix) is boisterous and verging on melodramatic. Dix had made dozens of silent films and seems to be working within that acting style. Of course, he’s playing a larger-than-life character with a natural proclivity toward grandiose speeches and spurts of intense emotion. Most of the minor actors are given character parts that lend themselves to stereotyped portrayals. Dunne is the most naturalistic though she sometimes gives in the general spirit of overacting.

She’s also the core of the movie. While the movie is epic in scale, the real focus is on the love of two people. All other thematic devices are kept in the background. Sabra’s racism, the antics of the Cravat children, the antics of the townspeople, and the metamorphosis of Oklahoma all take backseat to Sabra and Yancey’s tumultuous marriage.

The other citizens of Osage are a mixed bag of types. Trouble manifests itself in the form of devious Lon Yountis, an outlaw who shot the previous editor of the newspaper and is generally unwashed, and The Kid, the young leader of a band of bank robbers. There’s the Jewish peddler (later shopkeeper), the kindly saloonkeeper, the socially awkward printer, and the immigrant furniture salesman who also operates the morgue in Osage’s early days. The loudest is the matronly battleaxe, Mrs. Tracy Wyatt whose function is to be prudish and haughty and dislike prostitution. However colorful, these characters pretty much stay – along with the Cravat’s two children – on the peripheral of the story, making token appearances when necessary.

For his part, Dix plays the husband with such abandon that it’s hard not to like him despite his many faults. Yancey's tragic flaw is hyperactivity. He operates like an overly intelligent kid perusing a toy store while on a sugar rush. Sure, he understands that sweatshops manufactured the toys and that the paint probably contains lead, but everything is so excited and cool looking. He’s often the voice of reason and many times supports the underdog, coming to the defense of Sol Levy, Osage’s seemingly sole Jew and a peddler of lace, zippers, and other accouterments, and Dixie Lee, the ruined woman who has to resort to operating a brothel to stay alive. He’s also the only respecter of the Native American population.

However, his sense of reason and compassion is easily overcome by his wanderlust. When he gets the telegram that the Cherokee Indians have been swindled out of their lands, he's momentarily pensive, looking forlornly out the window. But he quickly realizes that this means he can again help build something where there was nothing. He disregards the plight of the Cherokees and abandons his family and newspaper to gallantly ride into the sunset.

So Yancey becomes an irresponsible blowhard. He’s wrapped up in his own needs which seem to also be the needs of the growing United States. His desire of more is so intense that he often cannot see those around him. When Isaiah is shot trying to save Cim during a shootout with The Kid, he doesn't die instantly but falls unnoticed in an alleyway. After being wounded and killing The Kid, Yancey slowly marches toward home, passing the alley where Isaiah is lying. Though Isaiah reaches out and weakly calls for Yancey, he's unheard and dies. When Sabra is obviously scared of the future, he rushes off for years at a time.

It’s easy to see why the film has such a dubious reputation. (It has the worst imdb and rottentomato ratings of any Best Picture winner.) Even though it has great compassion for its minor characters, the film often stereotypes them, sometimes for comedic effect. I suppose it seems outmoded today and doesn’t “age well” (a phrase I dislike). It hovers in that area between silent and talkie, imbibing in the aesthetic and technical aspects of each. It’s a very flawed film with its poor handling of minorities, its hammy leading man, and its out-of-control plot points. Still, it’s a wonderfully entertaining movie that really highlights the sprawling landscape of pre-statehood Oklahoma as it transforms into a civilization of skyscrapers and acres of towering oil wells.

watched on April 17, 2009
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