Cimarron

The winner of the 1930-31 Best Picture Oscar went to Cimarron, an RKO picture directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the novel by Edna Ferber (who wrote the source material for many classic Hollywood films, such as Showboat, Giant, and Stage Door). It was the only Western to win the top prize for sixty years until Dances With Wolves won.

Cimarron is a sweeping epic that covers the settling of Oklahoma, and covers forty years of history, from the land rush of 1889 to 1929, mostly through the eyes of Yancey Cravat and his wife Sabra, played by Richard Dix and Irene Dunne, respectively. Yancey is a larger than life character in the Daniel Boone/Davy Crockett mode, a lantern-jawed do-gooder who is a pioneer and a newspaper editor (as well as a lawyer and a minister in a pinch). He is a progressive thinker, who champions Indian rights and tries to clean up the town of Osage by outshooting the bad guys.

Viewed today, Cimarron is only moderately entertaining. It has some nice set-pieces, such as the land rush, which has hundreds of extras racing pell-mell in horses and wagons, but it's value today is more in offering a perspective on the politics of Hollywood in 1931. Yancey, as stated, is for Indian rights, but the film also has an earnest heart-on-the-sleeve attitude that is quite forward for the times, including tolerance of interracial marriage (between Caucasian and Indian), a woman being elected to Congress, and religious diversity. One of the characters is a Jew, Sol Levy, who while he is a merchant who goes from street peddler to retail king (a role often given to Jews) he is also very sympathetic. In one scene he is menaced by toughs and pushed against a crucifix-shaped wooden structure and spreads his arm in Christ-like pose.

There's also a long sequence in which Yancey defends a "soiled dove," Dixie Lee, who is being railroaded by the women in town. This ended up being a well-worn cliche in Westerns (most notably in Stagecoach). Although the exact nature of her transgressions are never spelled out (the words prostitute and whore were a long way from passing the lips of any actor in a Hollywood film) her situation is painted as a victim of circumstance, which is a classic liberal philosophy.

But the film, as good-intentioned as it is, also has some wincing stereotypes. A black servant boy named Isaiah is a Stepin Fetchit caricature (he's played by Eugene Jackson, who was Pineapple in a handful of Our Gang comedies). Also, the character of Yancey is problematic. He's supposedly this great hero, but he has the unfortunate habit of abandoning his wife and children from time to time to satisfy his wanderlust, without telling anyone where he is. That his wife continues to stand by him is certainly old-fashioned; she should have divorced him long ago.

Then there's the performance by Richard Dix. This film should be watched on Easter, as the smell of ham is so redolent. It's the kind of declamatory acting that was popular in nineteenth-century theater, in which a character says something profound that punctuates it by raising his hand and pointing his finger to the heavens. Dix was an actor in silents, and it shows. Irene Dunne, who would go on to have a great career, fares much better, and has a more naturalistic style.

The film was very expensive to make, and lost money despite its critical success and the Best Picture award. On the IMDB, it has the lowest rating of any Best Picture winner. I don't think it's that bad, but it's value is far more as a historical document than as entertainment.