evanston_dad The early Oscar Best Picture winners have a reputation for being some of the worst in the Academy's legacy, so maybe it's for that reason that I was pleasantly surprised by this epic that took home the prize in the Academy's fourth year. People scratch their heads now over what the Academy saw in this adaptation of an Edna Ferber novel that they liked enough to name it Best Picture of the 1930-31 award year, but is it really that difficult to see? "Cimarron" is a big film, big in themes, big in scope. It's creaky and antiquated, but it's consistent with the kind of movies the Academy would pick for its top prize over the succeeding decades.The first half of "Cimarron" is the best, following married couple Richard Dix and Irene Dunne as they move west as part of the land boom and establish themselves in a ramshackle town, one of hundreds that literally sprang up overnight. Dix has big dreams and isn't content to settle down for long. This conflicts with Dunne's desire to have a happy home. The land grab scene is pretty thrilling and technically accomplished for its time, and the early scenes set in the town are compelling as well, especially a scene set during church that ends with a congregant getting gunned down. Wild west indeed. The impressive set won art director Max Ree a deserved Oscar, for its sheer size alone if for nothing else.The second half of the movie runs out of steam, especially when Dix runs off and Dunne is left to run things, including their business, on her own. A climactic scene that ends the film tragically feels more soap opera than effective drama. This part of the film suffers from an inability of the filmmakers to approximate the realistic passing of time, so it all feels rushed.There were of course many more films that came out in the same year as "Cimarron" that are much better and more deserving of being remembered. But how often is the Best Picture Oscar winner ever the actual best film of its year? "Cimarron" is worth seeing as an early bit of Oscar history.It should be noted that the film set an early record for number of Oscar nominations, the first to be nominated for seven. It won three, adding Best Writing (Adaptation) to its awards for Best Picture and Best Art Direction. It was also nominated for Best Director (Wesley Ruggles), Best Actor (Dix), Best Actress (Dunne), and Best Cinematography.Grade: B

gavin6942 A newspaper editor settles in an Oklahoma boom town with his reluctant wife at the end of the nineteenth century.This film is something of an anomaly. Starting from an Edna Ferber novel, it was made into a western epic and was highly praised. The film received a ton of Oscar nominations, and even won Best Picture. The last western to do so until 1990's "Dances With Wolves" sixty years later. You would think it would be a massively powerful film.And yet, it has fallen hard. As of 2015, it is the lowest rated Best Picture on IMDb, with only a 6.0 rating. The rating is fair, but it means either this is the worst Best Picture ever made, or it was up against even worse films, or something...Not helping matters is the film's apparent rarity. It saw DVD release about a decade later than it should have, and as of 2015 still does not exist on Blu-ray. Nothing can be done for the story and acting, but it looks like the picture could be cleaned up some.

Red_Identity This isn't a bad film, and I like the transition it somehow makes between Dix then Dunne, in terms of central focus. I get what it's trying to do, mostly, but it's just so uninteresting most of the time. Nothing here is totally original, certainly not now, and the acting as a whole leaves a lot to be desired (so does the writing, but hey). Dix has some good moments, other distracting ones. Dunne comes off much better and she holds the piece together, and because of her the last half works somewhat well. The racism present throughout is god for commentary, but also troubling. This isn't terribly memorable, and while it's not as horrible as Crash (for Best Picture winners) it's also not as memorable for that reason.

Forn55 In a year that saw the release of "City Lights," "Little Caesar," and "The Blue Angel," "Cimarron" was surely the oddest choice to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, but win it did, although the award failed to translate into big bucks at the box office. At over two hours, the movie is both long (for its era) and strangely sluggish given its action-packed western setting. Adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber, "Cimarron" is interesting primarily for the celluloid collision of two schools of cinematic acting. The first, exemplified by Richard Dix playing two-fisted, editor-pioneer Yancey Cravat, is the school of silent-film histrionics; the second, is the more naturalistic school of screen acting which found in Irene Dunne (playing Dix's loyal wife, Sabra) one of its more sensitive and enduring interpreters. The two styles don't mix well. Dix is all ham and bluster; shaking his fists, gesturing like a road-company actor playing Julius Caesar, casting his eyes up to heaven and ringing the bells loudly on every emotional change his character undergoes. Dunne, by contrast, engages in a quieter duet with the camera; one that allows her character to develop slowly over the course of the movie. The disparity between the two styles is unsettling; the viewer is left with the impression of having seen the same movie through two different sets of lenses. The fact that "Cimarron" is both incredibly dated and blatantly racist doesn't help much, either.All that said, however, the movie's still worth watching, if only as an example of an early Hollywood blockbuster epic. The opening "land rush" sequence (with a cast of thousands) is compelling and cinematically sophisticated, even by today's standards. And there are several worthwhile cameo turns including one by Edna May Oliver, who manages to steal every scene she's in.