Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (July 31, 2023)
With 1931’s Cimarron, we get the first Western to win the Oscar Best Picture. Not that many entries in that genre subsequently took hime that trophy, but at least it answers that trivia question.
Set in 1889, attorney Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) maintains a good life in Kansas but he aspires to the open country and tries to snare a plot of land when the president allows prospectors to grab newly opened Indian territory. Alas, a woman of ill-repute named Dixie Lee (Estelle Taylor) tricks him and beats him to the punch.
Instead, Yancey takes his wife Sabra (Irene Dunne) and young son Cim (Junior Johnson) to the new frontier town of Osage, Oklahoma. There he puts out his shingle and also starts a newspaper.
Yancey wants to clean up the town and helps do so, though his wanderlust continues to lead him away from Osage and his family. The film follows the growth of Osage over a 40-year period, and we also see what happens to the Cravat clan.
I’ll bet the original novel by Edna Ferber was quite good. I feel that way since Cimarron has tons of promise, as it boasts an epic story that could’ve been a winning movie in the right hands.
Unfortunately, it didn’t achieve this success in 1931, as clumsy storytelling robs Cimarron of all its potential. The film skips from one scenario to another with little fluidity or logic, and it barely bothers to develop its characters to any notable degree.
Why does Yancey have such wandering feet? Why does Sabra stick by him?
And what about all the thinly developed supporting characters? The movie fails to dig into these in a satisfying way, as it leaves us with stock personalities and nothing more.
It manages to explore the very early years of Osage to a decent degree, as we get a reasonable feel for the town’s initial growth. After that, however, the movie turns into a highlight reel.
The film flies through the years with abandon and alights on the various eras so briefly that they mean little to us. Some of this becomes inevitable when you turn a long novel into a movie, but more skilled filmmakers could have presented more fluid transitions.
Since Cimarron came out in the formative years of Hollywood, I can cut it some slack for its flaws, I suppose. It’s always good to try to view a movie through the eyes of its era, though that trend can only go so far. For one, it’s virtually impossible to ignore 90 years of cinematic progress.
For another, there’s one big problem when you have to look at a movie as “good for its era”. If it’s unwatchable now, then this doesn’t really matter.
I wouldn’t classify Cimarron as “unwatchable”, but it certainly hasn’t held up well over the years. Frankly, with its clumsy story-telling and hammy acting, it’s hard to believe it ever looked all that good.
Obviously lots of folks must’ve liked it since it took home the Oscar. Today it looks like one of the weaker Best Picture winners.
