Panning for Gold: 1931 — 'Cimarron'
"Sugar, if we all took root and squatted, there would never be any new country."
Welcome to Panning for Gold, my new series looking back at every Best Picture winner in the history of the Oscars. Each newsletter will go over some of the other nominees, some historical context for each movie, and a brief review. Scroll to the bottom for a list of all previous entries in the series.
Today’s entry is Wesley Ruggles’ “Cimarron,” a Western about Oklahoma Sooners (the land-rushers, not the OU football team. Gross.) adapted from Edna Ferber’s top-selling novel of the same name from 1930. For those tracking at home, that’s two adaptations so far.
Other Best Picture Nominees
“East Lynne,” a melodrama
“The Front Page,” a screwball comedy that would later be adapted into “His Girl Friday”
“Skippy,” a comedy about a precocious child
“Trader Horn,” an adventure film about an African safari (and the first non-documentary film shot in Africa)
Other Awards
Best Adaptation
Best Art Direction
Was also nominated for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Recording. It was the first film to win more than two awards, and set a record for most nominations at the time.
The Stats
Director: Wesley Ruggles
Writers: Howard Estabrook, Louis Sarecky, Edna Ferber (adapted from her novel)
Producers: William LeBaron, Louis Sarecky
Starring: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne
Cinematography: Edward Cronjager
Editing: William Hamilton
Studio: RKO Radio Pictures
Running time: 124 minutes
Wide release date: Feb. 9, 1931
The Context
Oklahoma Land Rush happens on April 22, 1889, where thousands of homesteaders rushed to be the first to claim former Native lands
Wall Street crashes in the fall of 1929; Great Depression lasts until 1939
First Western to win Best Picture
The Movie
“Cimarron” is clearly the Best Picture winner that represents the starkest difference in reception from when it was released until now. The film is shoddy, aimless and loud. Worse than that, it traffics in racist caricatures of Black people, Native Americans and Jews, and serves no real purpose except as a reminder of American Manifest Destiny.
But it’s never helpful to apply a modern lens to old art, so let’s look at how the film was received in 1931. “Cimarron” was adapted from the top-selling novel of 1930. It was heavily lauded by critics and audiences upon its release for its sweeping cinematography and epic scope. And, to be fair, the first scene depicting the 1889 Land Rush is fascinating and a marvel to look at, with all of its long takes on horseback and quick action. The rest of the film never feels as inspired, and it’s often chaotic — studios didn’t know what to do with multiple sound tracks yet, and the result is an overbearing sound mix that goes in and out of range.
One gets the sense that the audience is supposed to feel inspired by protagonist Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix), who is like a Manifest Destiny Forrest Gump. Things just sort of happen around him, and he reacts accordingly, and he benefits from them. This man is a land-rusher, a lawyer, an editor, a newspaperman, a sharpshooter, a killer, a frontiersman, a preacher, an oil man, a Progressive (for the time) supporter of Native Americans, and, in the end, husband to a congresswoman. It’s easy to see why a 1931 audience would love him and the film he leads.
“It’s men like him that build the world,” one character gushes. Yancey is clearly an idealized Hero’s Hero, a can-do picture of rugged individualism and idealism Americans could aspire to in a time of economic crisis.
That’s a theme the Academy will come back to time and time again.
But, man. Even with an understanding of why it was successful at the time, racism is racism no matter what year you’re living in, and this thing makes a meal of racist stereotypes whenever it can. (Also, like “Broadway Melody,” it plays a character’s stutter for laughs.) But even if you remove those stereotypes, it doesn’t feel like a movie as much as a series of vignettes that just sort of hang together, with slow plotting and uninspired camerawork.
In theory, I should have loved this. “East of Eden,” another American epic spanning generations of one family, is one of my favorite books. I love a good Western. And the main character is a journalist. But “Cimarron” never has anything interesting to say about its characters or the country they inhabit.
That wraps it up for now. I’ll be back on Monday with 1932’s Best Picture winner: “Grand Hotel.”
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This newsletter is written by me and edited by my favorite person, Taylor Tompkins. Views expressed here are my own and don’t reflect the opinions of my employer.
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