1931--Cimarron, Wesley Ruggles

1931--Cimarron, Wesley Ruggles

Nominated: East Lynne, The Front Page, Skippy, Trader Horn

Should Have Won: Frankenstein

Be sure to see: City Lights, Dracula, M, Monkey Business

“If we all took root and squatted, there'd never be any new country."--Yancy Cravat

      I love old movies. Most of the people who don't appreciate them, I assume, feel they are dated. Most of the time I feel that is part of their charm and don't even notice. Westerns often feel dated because, well, they are dated. Even at the time of their release they are dated because they are set in the past. I've never let that bother me. Cimarron, on the other hand, feels extremely dated, from the poor sound quality to the blatant racism. But on a vast visual scale, the movie's sets do look very good. 

    The movie spans forty years, beginning in 1889. President Harrison has opened Indian Oklahoma for white settlement (that was mighty neighborly of him) leaving 2 million acres free for the taking. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of covered wagons are all packed together and a man with a watch and gun performs a modern day track and field sprinters' take your mark; get set; go! and everyone takes off at blinding speed. I guess these guys didn't play Oregon Trail in elementary school. 

     Cimarron (the place not the movie) is savage country; wild and unruly. Yancy Cravat and his wife Sabra decide to set out and try the new land; start a new life opening up newspaper in a new town. Yancy, Sabra, their son Sim (short for Cimarron) head west. Little do they know their black servant's son Isaiah has stowed away in their sleeping bag. Isaiah is an interesting character because the Cravats seem to love him more than the filmmakers do. They treat him as their own. But some very racist dialogue is thrown his way in such a casual fashion the audience was supposed to accept it; this was the early '30s after all. Pay no mind to the jaw dropping watermelon wagon scene (it makes Isaiah glad to be in Oklahomey). Not to mention Yancy's stuttering coworker (a stereotypical Jewish man) saying “C-c-come on, colored boy” to Isaiah. On top of the Isaiah and Jewish characters, the Native Americans are stereotyped characters. I don't have a problem with any of this because that was the time and I'm not one to get offended by history. It is the way the movie was filmed and should not be changed. Censorship is evil, I always say.  I just figured I'd throw out a warning for anyone wishing to pick the movie up. 

  

     Yancy, with his prominent jawline and wild hair (he looked like Anton Chigurgh from No Country for Old Men) runs into some rough characters when he reaches his new town. They shoot off his hat and bully street peddlers. Yancy never backs down though, and everyone seems to have known him for years. On top of being the local newsman he is also a preacher and has his final run in with the roughens. This happens halfway through the movie which surprised me since I thought that was going to be the climax. Throughout the movie, Yancy is a newsman, sheriff, and a preacher. He preaches church service for nine different denominations. Right over his shoulder during his sermon is a picture of a woman in bed that says “Open all day and all night”. That sure seemed out of place.

     The years pass. Children are born. The newspaper lives on. And since this is a western, there must be a shootout and there is a doozy, with one surprising and sad casualty. No it isn’t Lou Hefner the local wall-

paper salesman, though he does have the best name in town. Perhaps his great, great, grandson should start a magazine.

 

     As time passes, Yancy disappears leaving Sabra to run the newspaper. After forty years she earns an award which is a pretty big deal since women don't usually run a paper. What I liked about this scene is its time in the move is 1929 which is about the same time the movie was released, perhaps when it was written. It seemed appropriate. Their son has grown to marry an Indian woman and their daughter is upstanding too, but Yancy hasn't been seen in years. But the movie offers us two surprises at the end, an unveiling of a statue  (of what? They really drag this scene out) and the answer of what has become of Yancy. 

 

     I can understand why Cimaron was nominated for best picture. It was a pretty grand scale of a film and I liked a lot of the messages. I would love to see more movies with lead actor Richard Dix (Dick Dix, huh? He should have stuck with his birth name Ernst Brimmer). Perhaps his performance in the silent version of The Ten Commandments eight years earlier is worth a look. I bet he was great on stage because of his booming voice. But the movie Frankenstein, the actor Boris Karloff as the monster, and the screenplay adapted from Mary Shelly's novel should have all won the Oscar that year...none were even nominated.