Cimarron

Cimarron (released February 9, 1931)
Director: Wesley Ruggles
Starring: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Estelle Taylor, Roscoe Ates
Produced by: William LeBaron
Written by: Howard Estabrook (based on the novel by Edna Ferber)
Music by: Max Steiner
Cinematography by: Edward Cronjager
Distributed by: RKO Pictures

Context This

Eighty years is a long time, especially in the film industry. This amount of time has great impact on attitudes, cultural references, technological advances, and the collective memory of those who watch movies.

Cimarron won for Best Picture for the Academy Awards for 1930-31. I would imagine most people my age have never heard of it. Most of the people who saw it in the theaters are dead. Certainly everyone who was in it is dead. Today's world has almost no memory of this film that was judged to be the best of the best for that year.

But there are other movies from that year that are more memorable today than Cimarron. For instance, the 1930-31 span also produced two rather famous pictures: Little Caesar (with Edward G. Robinson) and Public Enemy (with James Cagney). Neither one was even nominated for Best Picture (or Best Actor) but both make a stronger mark in time than Cimarron has.

Sabra Cravat has that "Get me the @#$% out of here" look.

The movie was based on Edna Ferber's book by the same name. Turning books into movies has certainly been a phenomenon that has been with us since the beginning of motion pictures. The story follows the trials and tribulations of the Cravat family as they make their way from Witchita into the new territory of Oklahoma. Yancey and Sabra Cravat (played by Richard Dix and Irene Dunne) are a young couple who are suffocating under her well-to-do family's thumb. They move to the upstart town of Osage, OK where Yancey starts the town's newspaper, the Oklahoma Wigwam. The Cravats face all sorts of challenges with the riff raff and gunslingers that are drawn to the new boomtown. I was astonished at the shooting skills of all. Why Yancey himself draws his pistol and shoots from the hip, intentionally grazing the ear of Lon Yountis, the baddest, meanest outlaw Osage had to offer.

Watching this movie out of context would make one wonder just what the hell was the Academy thinking? The acting was overly melodramatic. But the film industry had only just moved out of silent pictures into the realm of talkies. Acting needed to be overblown in the silents to compensate for the lack of speech. Also, because sound had been so recently introduced, the technology wasn't advanced enough to give the quality we are used to to day with our Dolby 6.1 surround sound. Sometimes words were muffled, and no matter how high you turned up the volume, some words were just lost.

Sabra's domestic bliss lasts about three seconds beyond this point.

The story was still interesting. Spanning 40 years, we see the young family torn apart my Yancey Cravat's wanderlust and inability to stay in one place. Yancey actually abandons his family for five years in his quest for adventure. Then when he comes home he expects his family to welcome him with open arms. His children do, but his wife is torn between her relief at seeing him again and ripping his head off. She lets relief win, but Irene Dunne, I felt, did an admirable job of conveying that struggle within Sabra.

I do find it interesting that this story had such a mix of modern and antiquated ideology. On the one hand, the script makes no bones about putting down Indians, Blacks, and Jews. And yet the close of the movie sees Sabra Cravat being elected the first female Congresswoman to represent the State of Oklahoma in Washington. Even so, Yancey Cravat himself defends a prostitute in court, and has very tolerant ideas about Indians for a man of his time. Although I did notice he speaks of the Indians being robbed of their land, and yet takes part in the land rush to claim a bit of it for himself.

There were some rather comical parts. The first scene in the Venable home in Witchita (the childhood home of Sabra) we see a dining room scene briefly before it focuses in on one of the characters. I saw it and my brain did a "what the HELL was that?" It looked like there was a human being suspended above the table in a cage. And I was wondering if all those rumors about what dirty things the Victorians got up to behind closed doors was true.

When the camera cuts back to the whole table I see in fact my brain wasn't entirely wrong. There was a human suspended above the table. A young black boy named Isaiah was laying on a platform up near the ceiling, fanning the folks seated below with a large feather fan.

Wow. I can see why TCM doesn't have this one it its rotation. It was almost like a scene out of Blazing Saddles, only without the irony.

However, coming away from this film, I can see why it won over other films. There are some very high-brow themes that run through this picture that the Academy would love, even back then. Ideals like progress, pioneer spirit, and success through hard work are freely strewn through the picture. At the end, however, I felt the movie was less about Yancey and his freewheeling spirit, and more about Sabra and her constancy that were the foundation of this story. She comes out the real hero in the end.

That said, I've seen both Public Enemy and Little Caesar, and the writing in either script totally outstrips Cimarron's. I wondered why on earth Cimarron was nominated in nearly every category, while the other two pictures scored only one nomination each, and won nothing? And then I learned about "The Code."

The Academy didn't have the cajones to recognize real talent.

For those of you who may not know, a code of censorship guidelines was imposed on the production of movies in 1930, although it was not rigorously enforced until 1934. These codes restricted the portrayal of violence, crime, vice, drug use, and all sorts of nefarious activities. Both Public Enemy and  Little Caesar were both pictures that flouted the rules set forth in the code, portraying organized crime in a very favorable light. I would imagine then, that the MPAA couldn't go ahead and award these movies for blatantly ignoring the code it had just adopted.

Like The Greatest Show on Earth, we again find a film that won because of politics and not on its own merit.

~Anna

He’s no Stay-at-home Dad

I found it interesting that Edna Ferber’s historical novel, Cimarron, was brought to the screen only a couple of years after the book’s release. This would lead me to believe there was plenty of interest generated in the story of the late nineteenth century land rush for the Oklahoma Territories. Really? I guess that’s what people were into back in the early ’30s. Or maybe with the Great Depression starting to pick up a head of steam Americans were desperate to flock into movie houses and watch anything that took their minds off the worsening world outside the theaters. Still and all I don’t wish to bash this picture straightaway. Truth is I actually enjoyed it more than I thought. I should add that I did so with the same sort of quaint and slightly amused interest one would study an ancient Model T Ford.

Tedium: Film at eleven.

To a greater or lesser extent all movies are creatures of their times. They reflect the fashion, social mores and habits of speech that were prevalent at the time of their production. This might seem like a belabored point here, but as we re-watch this movie from a widening gap of eighty years, we might bear in mind the maxim of the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus who stated: “Noting is more constant than change.” And things certainly have changed since this motion picture hit the screens. The science of film-making has obviously advanced and it is evident throughout the picture. Camera angles and shots seem rather staid, stilted and stagy to a degree. A good example is the justly famous beginning shots of the picture that represent the start of the land rush. It is written that over five thousand extras and twenty-eight cameramen were used to film this sequence which for its time must have had a tremendous effect on audiences. Watched today however, it dissolves into a rather tedious elongated scene (2 min, 7 sec) of racing wagons bouncing across the prairie. The sheer numbers of them however is still mighty impressive.

Darling, someday your descendants will invite
everyone home for milk and cookies.

We are constantly reminded that we are not too distant from the stage while watching each scene unfold. The actors, in particular Richard Dix who portrays Yancey Cravat, tend to overplay for the camera. Coming from the stage and silent pictures, it must have been difficult at first for the players to tone down their exaggerated mannerisms which would have been expected of them when treading the boards where such things were embellished for the benefit of audience members seated in the back row. Acting in silent movies would have also added to the inflated gesticulations as now words could be used to communicate characters’ thoughts instead of overblown reactions. Thus Dix as Yancey hams it mightily through his scenes and in truth, makes an enjoyable time of it for the modern-day audiences. And excuse me for saying, but am I the only one who thinks I am looking at the spitting image of the late comic actor, Andy Kaufman when we first set eyes on Yancey Cravat in the saddle sporting his white hat? It’s almost scary how much they look alike. I was also amazed to see who I thought was Carol Burnett in the role of the prim and proper Mrs. Tracy Wyatt, played by Burnett look-a-like, Edna May Oliver. Wow!

Yancey Cravat is introduced to us as part of the thousands ready and willing to carve out their little piece of America at the beginning of the land rush. His character is thus set for the rest of the picture. Restless and eager to push on, he is the embodiment one supposes, of the great pioneering spirit of the late nineteenth century. Well, he might fill that role admirably, but he certainly makes a piss-poor husband and father. At one point in the middle of the story, his wanderlust hits him bad and he lights out, leaving his poor wife, Sabra (played by Irene Dunne) to mind the children and the family business (running the newspaper: The Oklahoma Wigwam) back in the burgeoning town of Osage. Whatta jerk! Of course, throughout the movie one has hints that before he married, Yancey was running with bandits and having a wild time of it in the rather ambiguous territory named Cimarron. I assume then we are to regard Yancey as a sort of lovable rogue, not willing to be tied down to anything as frivolous as a wife and two children. That is truly the only way you can look at his character in the light of how he is portrayed throughout the film.

Yancey Cravat: Piss-poor husband and a fantastic shot.

His handling of the riff-raff in Osage, and in particular the evil Lon Yountis (you gotta love these names!) is priceless. The leading men of the town chose Yancey to give a sermon at the first meeting of the Osage Methodist Church. Since the town hasn’t got a proper house of worship built yet, the meeting is conducted in Grat Gotch’s Hall of Chance, a gambling tent – the only place in town big enough to house the event. Yancey shows up in the guise of a pistol-packin’ padre, Bible in one hand and six-shooters firmly holstered. In the middle of his sermon, he must gun down Lon who stands in the back and tries to shoot him first. One watches these scenes with an open jaw…

Great Balls of Fire! Even Jerry Lee Lewis would have
been impressed with that head of hair.

There are numerous subplots enmeshed throughout the picture and in one of them, Yancey has to defend a whore with a heart-of-gold. While he makes his case (because of course in addition to being a pseudo-preacher and newspaperman, he is a former practicing lawyer too) I dare anyone to try and concentrate on his plea while concurrently watching the ridiculous ball of hair clinging to the right side of his temple become a living thing; bobbing and tossing about with abandon while below its owner chews up the scenery. Egad, but that’s some unintentionally funny stuff. Now since I’ve waxed poetic on noses [All the King’s Men] and teeth [The Last Emperor], I feel I should say something about Yancey’s hair. What in the hell is that all about?! Huge hanks of it flow out from both sides of his head and at times makes him look like he’s sporting goat horns. Was this the style back then? Frankly, I can’t see when this type of coif would ever be in style.

This movie is never going to receive an NAACP picture award due to its rather cavalier handling of minorities. Actor Eugene Jackson’s portrayal of Isaiah, the Cravat family’s young black retainer is filled with the accepted mugging for the camera and comic relief such characters were expected to provide eighty years ago. It must drive the PCers of today plum crazy. However in the moviemakers’ defense, several times throughout the film Yancey is portrayed as a character sympathetic to the Indians’ plight and by the end of the picture, his son has taken on a Native American wife.

While Yancey runs off for years-on-end to do his thing, Sabra must fend for the family and in doing so ends up a much stronger character than her husband. Her iron will and perseverance rewards her by the end of the movie with a seat in Congress! At the close of the picture we meet Yancey for the final time. In the succeeding years he has turned into a drifter hanging around the oil fields that have everywhere sprung up in the state of Oklahoma. Why he would leave a loving family to end up like this we are never properly told. However we are described his heroism as it is his selfless action that saved the lives of the oil men working around a rig that unexpectedly gushed, sparing them but mortally injuring him. Sabra upon hearing this, rushes to her dying husband and cradles his head in her arms as he utters his final words to her: “Wife and mother… stainless woman. Hide me in your love.” Quick, grab your hanky.

Touted as the “first Western” to earn an Academy Award, Cimarron is an interesting piece of history that must in part be watched as such in order to properly understand it.

--kak

Next up: How Green Was My Valley (1941)