#cimarron 1931

[sonicskullsalt]

"Here's a perfect example of an Oscar-winning film that has aged badly. At the time of its release, this RKO adaptation of Edna Ferber's 1929 novel was all the rage. It portrays the development of the Oklahoma Territory from its initial settlement in 1889 through statehood in 1907 to women's suffrage in 1929. But racial stereotypes, corny dialog, and stiff acting date it terribly, and there isn't much to commend it to modern audiences."

TajLV on Letterboxd

[crowdvscritic]

crowd // CIMARRON (1931)

Photo credits: IMDb.com

1889: Before Oklahoma!, there was CimarRON!

No, that’s not really the formatting of the title of the Best Picture winner for 1931, but for some reason I can’t talk about it without the cadence of adventure. Sabra’s (Irene Dunn) bougie family in Wichita explain that the word means “wild” and “unruly,” and it’s no coincidence that’s what she and her husband, Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix), named their firstborn son. Perhaps he’s compensating for his own highfalutin name, but Yancey is drawn to the wild. He’s one of the first to claim land in the Oklahoma territory and takes Sabra and Cim to settle in the newest American frontier. What Sabra doesn’t know: Oklahoma is full of his wild, unruly college frat buddies from his frontier days, and the restless Yancey’s more like them than she realizes. It’s the first of the family’s many conflicts as every milestone in the state’s history becomes a milestone in their family history.

Cimarron is the first watchable Best Picture winner for modern viewers. It’s a Western playing with familiar genre motifs, including the seedy town saloon, bank-robbing outlaws, and white hat heroes. (Though I can’t confirm, I suspect every Western cliché you can think of comes from this movie, and not always for the better—more on that in the Critic review.) While the plot meanders to hit as many episodes from the Edna Ferber novel it can, it deserves credit for keeping those episodes rootin-tootin’ with shoot-outs, wagon races, and courtroom scandals. And unlike last year’s winner (All Quiet on the Western Front), each character feels like an individual. Big personalities populate the town of Osage, including a Carol Burnett character gone back in time fond of phrases like “vicious hussy.”

That said, Cimarron has a ways to go before it has a chance at a cultural comeback. The sound was so fuzzy I needed subtitles to understand anything said, and even when read, it sounded melodramatic. Thankfully, the story isn’t just a list of births and deaths like the Ferber adaptation of Giant (1956), which t-r-u-d-g-e-d through the exact same story beats in Texas, but these beats will still be predictable to anyone watching today.

Bottom line: Cimarron is most memorable as a cultural artifact, but it’s also the first Best Picture winner to be a movie by the standards of today’s audiences.

POPCORN POTENTIAL: 6/10

[boardchairman-blog]

**Shots of the Movie**

Cimarron (1931)

Director: Wesley Ruggles Cinematographer: Edward Cronjager

[evolutionofoscars-blog]

[evolutionofoscars-blog]

[evolutionofoscars-blog]

Cimarron (1931)

3/5 stars -- ★★★✫✫

I am so conflicted. I spent the vast majority of the movie being unhappy with it -- it’s a Western from the 1930s, of course it would be patronizing (at best!!) to women and minorities -- but then it struck me:

This whole project is about the evolution of the Oscars (as a proxy for American cinema) -- not just the evolution of film as a technological marvel or an art form, but also the evolution of American society as captured through film. So many scenes in this movie made me sick, and furious, and heartbroken. The things depicted and ideas espoused were always unacceptable, and isn’t it wonderful that our society has finally caught up to recognize that widely?

And it was only in the last few scenes that it struck me that Cimarron is itself a film about evolution: Sabra’s evolution from a spoiled, sheltered, small-minded racist to an successful business woman, and self-sufficient single mother, and Congresswoman working to support women’s rights -- not tear other women down anymore -- who proudly welcomes her Native American daughter-in-law. Of course, even in her transformation, she’s still hella problematic. Even in its good intentions, the movie is still hella problematic in ways it doesn’t ultimately address.

But that’s the point of progress -- that’s it’s never over. We always have farther to go and to improve, and the fact that this ~90 year old movie can still be relevant today, especially today, is pretty powerful.

[lobbycards]

Cimarron, US lobby card card. 1931