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The movie opens with the old Hollywood method of introducing the actors and their characters that I've always been a fan of. We see the actor's name, the character's name, and the actor/character on-screen. It's always nice to know the players beforehand. After this completes, we get narration via the text cards, and our first one sets the scene:
"A nation rising to greatness through the work of men and women...New country opening...Raw land blossoming...Crude towns growing into cities...Territories becoming rich states...In 1889, President [Benjamin] Harrison opened the vast Indian Oklahoma lands for white settlement...2 million acres free for the taking, poor and rich pouring in, swarming the border, waiting for the starting gun, at noon, April 22nd..."
So right off the bat, we can see this movie's dated. The attitudes of most in regards to Indian land being "free for the taking" to whites was certainly different in 1930 versus today.
Indeed, hundreds and perhaps thousands of settlers are on horseback, some with covered wagons, as they prepare for the starting gun to sound so they can all head west to stake their claim of land. Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) is one of them, and apparently he's well known because lots of people get all happy when he shows up. A woman named Dixie Lee (Estelle Taylor) introduces herself to him. It turns out both are heading for the same area, Little Bear Creek. The gun sounds and everyone takes off, and we get three minutes of "Yippee"'s and "Yahoo"'s as everyone races to their desired destinations like Christmas shoppers at Wal-Mart at 4AM on Black Friday. Eventually, Yancey and Dixie break away from the pack and both head to Little Bear Creek. Dixie's horse falls as she tries to follow him down a rocky embankment. Yancey helps her up, but her horse has broken its leg. She asks him to shoot the horse as she can't bring herself to do it. He does it for her. He then turns around to find that she's stolen his horse and laid claim on his desired land.
Back home in Kansas City, Yancey's family is upset that he "let" Dixie take his desired land. Yancey says she outsmarted him and she earned it, but he's going to go back and find a new area to settle, and this time he's bringing his wife Sabra (Irene Dunne) and young son along to the territory he wants, the Cimarron area of Oklahoma. In fact, Cimarron is his son's name, who they refer to as "Cim" for short. Felice Venable (Nance O'Neil) forbids it, and she doesn't like Yancey anyway, especially his sympathy for the Indians in all this, but Sabra says she's going because she loves her husband. Awwwwww.
So off the Cravats go. They decide to stop somewhere for the night, and when unpacking they find that their young houseboy, Isaiah (Eugene Jackson), has stowed away. Isaiah pleads to stay with them, promising he'll work as hard as he did for them in Kansas City. The Cravats like Isaiah a lot so they decide he can live with them in their new dwelling. That night, Yancey and Sabra are having a romantic moment under a tree when some bandits ride up and begin to hold them up, but the leader of the gang, The Kid (William Collier, Jr.) and Yancey actually know each other from the past, so it turns into a bit of a reunion instead. The Kid says he has to move along since he's on the run from a bank holdup. The bandits leave.
The Cravats eventually settle in the new town of Osage, Oklahoma. It's taken just six weeks for this new area to begin to develop; already the population is about 10,000. Tents house businesses, some buildings are being built and street names are created. There's also craziness. LOTS of craziness. Bar fights and all that. They get a room at the Bixby Hotel and Yancey decides this is the town where he wants to start up his newspaper business. Sabra objects, saying she won't raise their son in such a manic area, but Yancey delivers his charm and calms her down. He heads across the way to the saloon and gaming hall. He reunites with some more people he evidently knew already, like Jesse Rickey (Rosco Ates). Then he meets Lon Yountis (Stanley Fields), who doesn't seem too friendly. He knows that the town's old newspaper editor was murdered, shot in the back. He infers Lon may know something about it. Lon decides to clam up, then get defensive when Yancey presses the issue.
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| Photo courtesy of Danny Reid at Pre-Code.com |
The next day, Yancey and Sabra are walking. Sabra is wearing an elaborate homemade dress and feels overdressed compared to other women in town. Lon is watching them while hanging out with his gang of outlaws. They give Yancey lip but he ignores them. He doesn't ignore when Lon then shoots his hat off. Yancey calmly picks up the hat, cleans it off, and delivers a stealth bullet that grazes Lon's ear. Sabra yells at Lon, who walks off. Yancey tells her to calm down or word will get out that he has to hide behind his wife's skirt. Nice gratitude.
Yancey starts up his newspaper, the Oklahoma Wigwam. He prepares for his first issue by planning to reveal in that issue the killer of the former newspaper editor. The building that houses the newspaper doubles as their new residence as well. Cim is playing outside when an Indian gives him a feather as a gift. Cim thanks him and excitedly runs inside to show the feather to Sabra, but Sabra has a bias towards Indians as well and tells him he shouldn't talk to them.
Sol Levy (George E. Stone) is going through town with his cart selling household items, many for women. Lon and his gang yell catcalls at Sol, and eventually Lon lassos Sol to him. Sol tries to run but the gang shoot the ground around him, causing him to dance. Lon then forces Sol to drink whiskey until Yancey comes out of his notary public tent (yeah, evidently Yancey keeps himself busy) and shoots the bottle into pieces. Yancey helps up Sol, then again questions Lon about the murder of the former editor. Lon tells him to mind his business.
It's Sunday. Yancey decides to hold a church service for the town. Dixie Lee walks in leading a bunch of other ladies, and Dixie beams when she sees Yancey is going to lead the service. Sabra is told of who Dixie is and it's inferred that Dixie leads those other women via her brothel. Sabra is shocked. Yancey takes up a collection while they all sing. He calls for everyone to donate a quarter minimum. The final total is $133.55, which means someone didn't donate a quarter, I guess. One of the churchgoers calls that maybe a Cherokee (who have several in attendance) shorted the plate but Yancey says they shouldn't even be donating to those who stole their land in the first place. Yancey's "service" consists of a confession. He's printing his first paper later in the week and he was going to reveal the murderer of the former editor in that edition, but he's instead decided to reveal the name now. He starts to say the name, but before he can do so, Lon takes a shot at him. Yancey fires back and kills Lon. Yancey then says Lon was the murderer. How he figured that out, I have no idea, but at this point I've given up on trying to explain to myself a lot of things going on here. So that ends the service. My churches were never that exciting. Afterwards, Dixie says hello to Yancey. He asks what brings her to town. She says her old neighbors forced her and her ladies to leave. Later, Sabra is upset with Yancey for being cordial to Dixie. Yancey says she has every right to make a living, and then scratches up another notch on his gun handle.
Yep, now it's 1890. The town's developed a little more, and so has the Cravat family as they have a new daughter, Donna. The Kid and his outlaws invade the town one day and shoot up the bank. Everyone heads for cover and eventually it's an old-fashioned gunfight on Main Street with everyone hiding behind things and shooting. The Kid hates when he sees that Yancey lives here but this time, he keeps on shooting. Cim is hiding behind a fence. Sabra realizes he's not there and Isaiah goes to retrieve him despite Sabra's objections. Isaiah winds up shot. Finally, the only bandit left is The Kid. Yancey gets to him first. Bleeding, The Kid stumbles to his horse, then shoots Yancey in the arm. Yancey shoots him again and the horse takes off. The Kid's dead. Everyone comes out to congratulate Yancey, saying this reward will be huge as The Kid had bounties posted all over the place. Cim runs back to Sabra, who's excited about all this reward talk, but Yancey says he's not taking a cent of reward money, he had to kill The Kid to protect his family. Sabra objects to this but the anger turns to sadness as Sol carries in the dead body of Isaiah.
And now it's 1893. President Grover Cleveland has opened up more land, the Cherokee strip with 6 million acres. Many in Osage plan to move. Dixie is still considered dirty by most of the town, such as Mrs. Tracy Wyatt (Edna May Oliver). Sabra has by now gotten very used to Osage and loves it here. Yancey laments the fact that the Indians are being pushed further back onto less and less land, and then he follows that up by saying he's ready to get on his horse and go claim some of that new land. Schizophrenia, thy name is Cimarron. Sabra objects, but Yancey does his usual arrogant charm and takes off on a horse when everyone shows up with one for him. He tells Sabra he'll send back for her and the kids.
1898. Sabra is running the Oklahoma Wigwam, which is now a very successful daily edition. Yancey's name is still listed on every issue as the editor. Sabra has a story ready for the next edition about the arrest and likely-upcoming conviction of Dixie for being a public nuisance (i.e., running her brothel). Lo and behold, Yancey comes back. He and his family reunite after five years and everyone is strangely taking this as if he didn't totally abandon his family for five years. He sees an Indian girl named Ruby now works for them as a housekeeper. Jesse Rickey works for the paper and he invites Yancey for a drink. While with Jesse, Yancey sees the next headline shouting about Dixie's conviction. Jesse tells him it hasn't happened yet but it will later today after the trial. Yancey asks Sabra about it. She explains the situation and how she supports it. Dixie has no defense lawyer, so Yancey, because he's just that much of a man, will do it. Sabra objects. Yancey charms. He says every man and woman has a right to a defense in a trial.
The prosecutor, Pat Leary (Robert McKenzie), is bombastic to put it mildly. He rests his case. Yancey starts his defense by mocking Leary and getting laughs from the jury. He calls Dixie to the stand and she tells her story. Her parents died when she was young, she was penniless, she worked in a library, fell in love and got married, but her husband was already married to another so he took off, and then the baby died, and then was blamed for it, so now she runs a brothel. Got all that? Yancey lays it on thicker than Skippy Super Chunk peanut butter to the jury, who ultimately find Dixie not guilty of being a public nuisance, or whatever the silly charge was. Sabra is IRATE at Yancey now, telling him she defended him for 5 years while he was away doing God-knows-what, hearing every rumour ABOUT him doing God-knows-what, and he shows up out of the blue one day and makes a mockery of HER desire to clean up the town of Dixie's filth. Yancey, because he's Yancey, delivers his all-compassing "I'm right and I'm righteous" spiel yet again, saying he defended Dixie's God-given All-American rights. Sabra, because she's Sabra, delivers her all-compassing "You're right, honey" spiel yet again, saying...well, not really saying anything but delivering the impression to us that she's just a twit.
1907. President Theodore Roosevelt has officially signed the territory of Oklahoma into statehood. And oil is discovered. Everyone gets rich. Life advances. Trolleys, carriages, cars. Cim is an adult now, and Donna's almost there too. Donna's also a whiny little brat who hates that she has to wear homemade clothes because Yancey's the only one in town who won't get in on the oil craze. Cim is in love with Ruby and plans to marry her. Sabra isn't happy with the news. Donna says she's going to find the richest white man in town and marry him. Speaking of rich white guys, Louis Hefner (Robert McWade) has a new car and everyone in town is admiring it. Yancey is running for governor. Leary visits Yancey and pitches an idea that would swindle Indians out of their land in the name of oil. If Yancey helps, Leary can sway a lot of votes his way. Yancey tells Leary to go pound salt and he'll smash all crooked politics. Leary leaves in a huff. Yancey has an editorial planned for the next edition of the newspaper that cries foul against oil being stolen from the Osage Indian reservation. Sabra doesn't want the editorial to run, saying it's anti-government. Yancey says the editorial also shares his belief that Indians deserve full citizenship in the U.S. Sabra flatly refuses, saying she's forgiven Yancey for a lot of things but this would be the breaking point. Yancey for the first time doesn't go the "charm and smarm" route. He just says until Sabra takes his name off the paper as editor, he's in charge, and the editorial will run.
Another narrative card:
"With the fading glory of the pioneering days.....Yancey again stirred by wanderlust, had ridden away to newer fields, while Sabra carried on her work, alone.....
1929. Osage is a full-fledged city. Streets and sidewalks, large buildings, everyone drives a car. The Oklahoma Wigwam is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Yancey's name remains as editor. To celebrate the anniversary issue, Sabra and Jesse decide to reprint Yancey's 1907 editorial calling for Indians to gain citizenship. As it turned out, that editorial got the wheels turning for just that. Sabra has also just been elected to the U.S. Congress, and a celebratory dinner is being held for her. Sol, Jesse and Tracy all attend and join everyone else in a toast to Sabra, who then introduces her family. Cim and Ruby have wed and have two children, and Sabra has changed her tune, no longer harboring any bias towards Indians. Donna did indeed marry the richest white man in town, Louis. After the dinner ends, Sabra misses Yancey. Sol and Donna comfort her. Everyone's then alerted that there was an explosion in an oil field, but one man saved everyone else by throwing his own body onto the defective explosive device. Sabra overhears that the hero is "some drifter who's been hanging around since [the field] opened" who is known as "Old Yance." Wow, really? After all the years of everyone knowing who Yancey Cravat was, suddenly years went by and NO ONE IN OR AROUND THIS OIL FIELD REALIZED THAT THIS GUY WAS FUCKING YANCEY CRAVAT?!?! Ugh. Anyway, Sabra runs to the oil field and holds Yancey, who proclaims his final statement of love for his wife. Then he dies, and a statue to commemorate the Oklahoma pioneers is revealed in his image.
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Wow. You know, this is normally the point of the blog where I toss out some trivia, but I have to deviate from that practice today just to vent for a moment.
I saw this film and took my notes and blah blah blah, and to be honest, I didn't think it was all that bad a film. It actually tells a pretty decent story and there's a lot of impressive staging for 1930. In that regard, I can see why it won Best Picture. So then I started to write up this blog and deliver the synopsis of the movie, and as I wrote more and more, the level of pure ridiculousness and insanity of this film really hit me. I understand society was very different in 1930, so I can look past the pure racism of the movie. Obviously, this film would never be made today in this form. In fact, Cimarron was actually remade in 1960 and while the story was changed a bit to fill in the illogical plot holes and eliminate the racism (for example, the character of Isaiah is totally eliminated), it is generally considered the weaker of the two films. But I digress. The general ludicrousness of how a lot of things played out in this movie became more evident to me in the few days since I watched the movie, and they especially glared as I typed this up. I guess I can understand why this is the Best Picture that has the lowest average IMDB user rating (6.1 as of today's date).
OK, I feel better now. Onto some factoids...
Cimarron was a box-office dud, but recouped its losses when it was re-released into theaters in 1935.....The movie opened in February of 1931. Oscar eligibility now runs a normal calendar year, but early periods from year to year varied. Nominations for the 4th ceremony were for films released between August 1, 1930, and July 31, 1931.....The opening land rush scene utilized over 5,000 extras.....This is the only internally-produced RKO Pictures film to have won Best Picture.....Cimarron was the first movie to be nominated for every major award at the Oscars, and is one of only two films in history (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) to receive nominations in every eligible category.
Let's delve a bit into that last piece of trivia. This was only the 4th Oscars event so there weren't too many categories, just nine in total. The only two categories that Cimarron weren't eligible to receive nominations for were Best Story (which translates into its current definition of Best Original Screenplay) and Best Sound Recording (at this point in time, studios as a whole were nominated for their overall body of work in a given year as opposed to individuals being nominated for a specific film) . So that means Cimarron scored seven nominations, which was a record at the time. The film lost out in the categories of Best Cinematography (Edward Cronjager, and I'll be honest, I'm kind of surprised it lost that one), Best Actress (Dunne, who did a very nice job in her role), Best Actor (Dix, who I thought was overacting and overbearing in his role) and Best Director (Wesley Ruggles). Wins came for Best Art Direction (Max Rée), Best Adapted Screenplay (Howard Estabrook) and, as it was termed at this time, Outstanding Production. Cimarron took home the top prize over East Lynne, The Front Page, Skippy and Trader Horn. Give me The Front Page, an excellent screwball comedy, any day.
So what's my final verdict? It's not the worst Best Picture I've ever seen. Hell, it's not even close to that. But it is absolutely the most bizarre Best Picture I've ever seen. You marvel at the scenery one minute, you cringe at the dialogue the next minute. You laugh and enjoy the characters one minute, you want to throw a brick at the same characters the next minute. You admire the social message being inferred one minute, you scratch your head at how that social message gets trampled the next minute. Cimarron is an exercise in pure cinematic schizophrenia.
[NOTE: There is apparently no existing trailer for the film available publicly.]
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