Starring:
Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, et al.
Director: Wesley Ruggles
Review
This epic Western won the 1931 Academy Award for Best
Picture. Heartthrob Richard Dix plays Yancey Cravat (yes, really, that's
his name) a frontiersman, newspaper editor, and former gunslinger who's
studly enough to fill in as preacher or lawyer should the situation
demand. Yancey brings his young bride Sabra to the wild Oklahoma territory
to taste the adventure, crusade for social justice, and leave his family
for years at a time. Modern viewers will have trouble making it past one
or two horrifying racist caricatures at the start, made doubly odd because
of the film's intended message of tolerance. Once it gets underway,
though, Cimarron can be quite a bit of fun. Most of its pleasures are of
the guilty variety--Dix's performance in particular is endearingly
huge--but there are a few genuine highlights. The Oklahoma Land Rush
sequence is still exciting and wet blanket Sabra turns out to have far
more gumption than anyone imagined. --Ali Davis
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This film is very dated and does not hold up well when
measured by today's standards. Therefore, it may be hard to believe that
not only was it the fourth film to win the best picture Academy Award, but
that it also won the awards for screenplay adaptation and art direction.
Its principal value at this point would appear to be in an
historical sense, for it depicts events, such as the Oklahoma land rush
and the old west generally, that were not that far removed in time when
this film was made. There were people living at the time of the filming,
who had personal recollection of the events depicted. So don't dismiss the
film out of hand, but, rather, view it in the context of its time.
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