CIMARRON
Well, The Broadway Melody must’ve been happy to see that their reign as worst Best Picture Winner only lasted two years. Behold the 1931 winner, a sprawling Western about the taming of the wild Oklahoman west. There are so many things wrong with this film, where to begin?
First, the story is a complete mess. It spans 40 years, from the Oklahoma Land Rush to the start of the Great Depression, and yet none of the characters develop more than could be done in a week. Thus, this film is sprawling with time but to no real benefit other than feeling choppy as hell. And then there’s the lead character, Yancey Cravat, a smug, overconfident, holier-than-thou know-it-all asshat. He’s the self-appointed lawyer, newsman, sheriff and priest of this small town, and boy if he doesn’t know it. Add to that the performance by Richard Dix: over-the-top, heavy-handed, hammy and ridiculous. He does whatever he wants, usually against the wishes of his tender, loving wife (even the Times review back then couldn’t ignore it: “No matter how gallant Cravat may be during certain interludes, it is invariably his wife who enlists one’s sympathy.” Cravat simply kisses his wife and says “I’ll miss you, sugar” as he runs out the door. At one point he’s gone for five years with no word, then strolls back into town and merely kisses her as if he’d been to the store, only to immediately learn that the town prostitute is on trial and rushes over to the courthouse to deliver the triumphant closing statement in her defense. Asshat.
There are many contrivances in the Western genre, and they’re all here…. although this film is so early in the sound Western genre, they likely weren’t yet contrivances. The town hooker, the stuttering drunk, the gallant hero, the black-hatted baddie, the shoot-outs, the drunks, the racism, the hubris. Even the Great Depression, barely a year old at this film’s release, must’ve seemed jolly by comparison. Yikes, RKO, what hath thou wrought?
SIDENOTE: It recently came to my attention that in my review of John Ford’s groundbreaking film Stagecoach I said it was “the first sound Western”. That’s a typo: it was Ford’s first sound Western.
