Cimarron

CIMARRON (PG)

D: Wesley Ruggles

RKO (William LeBaron)

US 🇺🇸 1931

124 mins

Western

W: Howard Estabrook [based on the novel by Edna Ferber]

DP: Edward Cronjager

Ed: William Hamilton

Mus: Max Steiner

PD: Max Ree

Cos: Max Ree

Richard Dix (Yancey Cravat), Irene Dunne (Sabra Cravat), Estelle Taylor (Dixie Lee), Nance O’Neil (Felice Venable), William Collier, Jr. (The Kid)

Considered by many to be the worst film to win the Best Picture Oscar, Cimarron is a sprawling Western epic based on Edna Ferber’s novel of the same name.

Cimarron starts promisingly enough, featuring the 1889 Oklahoma land rush, filmed with a vast, sweeping style with impressive cinematography & editing, as thousands of people take to the plains to set up communities in the state.

One of those wanting to make a new life in Oklahoma is Yancey Cravat and his family, but he doesn’t get the plot of land that he so desires and sets up home in the town of Osage, where he sets up a newspaper and the narrative follows him and his family over the next four decades.

Aside from the rousing opening scene, the rest of the film is a boring dirge, filled out with underwhelming characters and some truly offensive negative racial stereotyping.

It could be said that it’s simply a film that has dated itself badly, but even in the context of when it was made, I wouldn’t consider this a good film.

Westerns aren’t particularly well represented at the Oscars and this was the first of its genre to earn the big prize, but in reality, it’s one that’s best forgotten.

5/10