Cimarron

Cimarron (1931)

Runtime: 123 minutes

Directed by: Wesley Ruggles

Starring: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Estelle Taylor, Nance O'Neil, William Collier, Jr.

From: RKO

Yep, this has aged as well as moldy cheese. Randomly I was struck recently with the idea to check out a film that infamously has been known in the 21st century to be one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time. By design I've avoided all the other candidates for that category (no Green Brook, Driving Miss Daisy, the Crash from the early 2000's, etc.) so comparisons can't be done on my part. That said, this was just mediocre rather than a rancid sort of bad.

Thing is, this started off well. This follows the amusingly named Yancey Cravat and his family through the years as they move from Wichita to the just-opened Oklahoma Territory where a mad dash to stake your claim happened. That mad rush was an impressive scene due to the number of actors, horses, and stagecoaches involved. His wife Sabra at first is reluctant to make the move... for certain her rich family disapproves. Then again, she at first is racist against Native Americans, and yeah I will address that later. Yancey is like a Marty Stu-a female Mary Sue-as you see him as a lawyer, a man religious enough to preach to a crowd, a newspaper man, someone good with a gun, someone who supports Native Americans AND almost became a politician. What a wacky sprawling story from Edna May Ferber that was the novel this was based on.

This certainly has sins. The sprawling nature doesn't always help it—many disconnected events are shown as the timeframe is several decades. Attitudes towards Black people and Native Americans are of the time, meaning they are poor. There's a smidgen of an attempt to be “progressive”, yet this means “a death that's supposed to be heroic” and “a Native American character is obviously played by a white person” so it doesn't exactly work. Strangest of all, more than once Yancey peaces out and leaves his family for years at a time, and for the flimsiest of reasons.

Even with all the negatives, it was not a movie I hated. After all, the scope at times was impressive, and not just in the opening land rush. There are some stunning shots that involve plenty of extras. The performances by both Richard Dix and Irene Dunne are fine. Notwithstanding, I can't say this was any better than “meh”. This is the only nominated film for Best Picture that year I've seen; considering that Trader Horn had legitimate animal abuse during filming and two others I had never heard of before-and you probably haven't either-(East Lynne and Skippy)... there are plenty of films from this time period far more worthy of viewing—in the Western genre, 1930's The Big Trail is superior overall.