In the rush to claim newly opened
lands in the Oklahoma
Territory, a man takes
his Upper Middle Class wife Sabra (Irene Dunn) to the barren prairie to claim
his piece of the wilderness. That man is Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix), a
polymath with dreams of opening a newspaper in the burgeoning boom town of Osage. As the town
thrives, Yancey becomes a local hero and leader but his itchy feet urge him to
move on and his adventures out of town leave his wife to fend for herself in
the dangerous South West while running his newspaper and raising their children
in his absence.
Cimarron won the 1931
Academy Award for Outstanding Production (subsequently renamed Best Picture)
and was the first movie to be nominated for seven Oscars as well as the first
to be nominated for the ‘Big Five’. In addition to its critical reception, the
movie was also RKO’s most expensive picture to date and would remain so for
close to a decade. The expense, coupled with the Great Depression meant that
the film produced a loss for the studio and didn’t recoup its budget until a
re-release several years after its initial release. Despite the large budget
and critical success I thought Cimarron was a slightly messy and uninspiring film
which left me bored for most of its two hour run time.
