Cimarron
 | Directed by Nick Grinde, Rudolf Ising, Wesley Ruggles Starring: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Edward Buzzell, Mary Carlisle, Vera Marshe Warner Home Video, 1931, DVD Customer Rating: 26 reviews Recommend |
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- Spaces were neither wide nor open in most early Sound Westerns. Not so in Cimarron. It starts with one of the most renowned giddy-ups in cinema history: a thundering recreation of the 1889 Oklahoma Land Rush.From there Cimarron, based on the bestselling epic by Giant and Show Boat novelist Edna Ferber, traces the generations-spanning saga of that land. There rugged Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) and
Spaces were neither wide nor open in most early Sound Westerns. Not so in Cimarron. It starts with one of the most renowned giddy-ups in cinema history: a thundering recreation of the 1889 Oklahoma Land Rush. From there Cimarron, based on the bestselling epic by Giant and Show Boat novelist Edna Ferber, traces the generations-spanning saga of that land. There rugged Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) and his resourceful pioneer wife Sabra (Irene Dunne) sink roots, persevere, give shape to their dreams. It's a saga of change, told with an authenticity that moviegoers who had lived through that era recognized - and told with a skill that earned it three Academy Awards * including Best Picture!
This epic Western won the 1931 Academy Award for Best Picture. Heartthrob Richard Dix plays Yancey Cravat (yes, really, that's his name) a frontiersman, newspaper editor, and former gunslinger who's studly enough to fill in as preacher or lawyer should the situation demand. Yancey brings his young bride Sabra to the wild Oklahoma territory to taste the adventure, crusade for social justice, and leave his family for years at a time. Modern viewers will have trouble making it past one or two horrifying racist caricatures at the start, made doubly odd because of the film's intended message of tolerance. Once it gets underway, though, Cimarron can be quite a bit of fun. Most of its pleasures are of the guilty variety — Dix's performance in particular is endearingly huge — but there are a few genuine highlights. The Oklahoma Land Rush sequence is still exciting and wet blanket Sabra turns out to have far more gumption than anyone imagined. — Ali Davis
Title: Cimarron
Sales Rank: 13998 in DVD
Actor: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Edward Buzzell, Mary Carlisle, Vera Marshe
Director: Nick Grinde, Rudolf Ising, Wesley Ruggles
Studio: Warner Home Video, 2006-01-31, Theatrical Release: 1931-02-09
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC, Acpect Ratio 1.33:1
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region Code: 1
Running Time: 123 minutes
Item Dimensions: 0.25 pounds
Package Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches, 0.18 pounds
- A classic novel of the old west
- There are several versions of this novel as movies;
I remember seeing a color version from the 50's.
The acting is very good and this history of the US
government selling off Indian land after they had been relocated
there in the past as being the most worthless land they could think of at the time?… More reviews
- Nothing beats the original
- I saw this film a few years back. It amazed me. Way ahead of its time. Irene Dunne is phenominal and a perfect counterpoint to her Yancy. I have not seen the film since. I was compelled to order the original DVD today after watching the 1960 remake with Glen Ford last night on TCM. Although specatular in cinemascope, I wound up just hating… More reviews
- When the Old West was much less Old
- I decided that I wanted to watch all the Best Picture Academy Award-winning films from the very first one. Unfortunately, like many of my generation, the older a movie is, the less I can tolerate it. This is not something I'm proud of, but it's just the way it is. But I was pleased that CIMARRON was an exception. It is in fact the… More reviews
- A Creaky Western Saga
- It's hard to believe this 1931 relic won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Wesley Ruggles' clumsy production of Edna Ferber's "Cimarron" survives only as a curio. The western saga opens with a rehash of the Oklahoma land-rush sequence from William S. Hart's 1925 classic "Tumbleweeds" and goes downhill fast. Richard Dix's cartoonish portrayal belongs in the School… More reviews
- Early Irene Dunne in Classic Western
- This is a sprawling epic version of Edna Ferber's novel. It starts with the original Oklahoma Cimmaron land rush (1889) and ends in during the height of the oil rush (1930).
This is a great movie about the a part of US history that most people have only heard breifly about. And like Ferber's more famous book Show Boat, this… More reviews
