Cimarron (1931)

A newspaper editor settles in an Oklahoma boom town with his reluctant wife at the end of the nineteenth century.

Director:

Wesley Ruggles (uncredited)

Writers:

Edna Ferber (novel), Howard Estabrook (screen version)

Stars:

Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Estelle Taylor

Won 3 Oscars. Another 2 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Richard Dix	...	Yancey Cravat
Irene Dunne	...	Sabra Cravat
Estelle Taylor	...	Dixie Lee
Nance O'Neil	...	Felice Venable
William Collier Jr.	...	The Kid
Roscoe Ates	...	Jesse Rickey (as Rosco Ates)
George E. Stone	...	Sol Levy
Stanley Fields	...	Lon Yountis
Robert McWade	...	Louis Hefner
Edna May Oliver	...	Mrs. Tracy Wyatt
Judith Barrett	...	Donna Cravat (as Nancy Dover)
Eugene Jackson	...	Isaiah
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Roberta Gregory	...	Indian Girl

Storyline

When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes a leading citizen of the boom town of Osage. Once the town is established, however, he begins to feel confined once again, and heads for the Cherokee Strip, leaving his family behind. During this and other absences, his wife Sabra must learn to take care of herself and soon becomes prominent in her own right.

---

Plot Keywords:

oklahoma | newspaper | newspaper editor | frontier | land rush | 

---

Taglines:

World's Mightiest Show!

---

Genres:

Drama | Western

---

Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English French

Release Date:

9 February 1931 (USA)

Also Known As:

Cimarrón

Filming Locations:

Venice, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,433,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

RKO Radio Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

123 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Along with A Free Soul (1931), the first ever movie to be nominated for two acting Oscars: Best Actor for Richard Dix and Best Actress for Irene Dunne.

---

Goofs

During the period of the film set in 1907, Yancey is the Progressive Party's candidate for governor of Oklahoma. The Progressive Party did not form until 1912, and then disbanded after Theodore Roosevelt's unsuccessful third party candidacy that year.

---

Quotes

[caption at the beginning of the film]
Caption: In 1889, President Harrison opened the vast Indian Oklahoma Lands for white settlement... 2,000,000 acres free for the taking, poor and rich pouring in, swarming across the border, waiting for the starting gun, at noon, April 22nd.

---

Connections

Featured in 100 Years of the Hollywood Western (1994)

User Reviews

Big epic - good film too

Big budget, sweeping epic and actually a decent film to boot. Cimarron covers forty years of frontier life in Oklahoma. A large part of the film rests on the shoulders of the flamboyant character Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix). Yancey embodies the spirit of the kind of men who build cities. He is a newspaper man, a politician, a lawyer, a preacher, a family man and a gunfighter. When he talks, people listen, when he decides to do something, he does it, and when he draws his guns, men die. Richard Dix may not have been the most natural actor in the world, but his broad build, booming voice and intense energy lent itself to the strong, forceful character of Yancey Cravat. Cimarron is also quite an impressive production. The opening Oklahoma land race is captured every bit as well as it was sixty years later in Ron Howard's Far and Away. The costumes, sets and decor show us the passage of time as a small shanty town develops over the years into a major city. Like most films high on production value, though, Cimarron is low on substance. The storyline is too broad to be engaging and there is no real emotional core to the film. Nonetheless, it is entertaining and that is enough to make it worth watching.