CIMMARON 1931

CIMMARON  1931

When the Beverly Hillbillies debuted in 1962, people were stunned to discover that spry old Granny Clampitt was played by Irene Dunn. Newspapers ran then-and-now photos of the Best Actress nominee of 1931.

Today, few people remember Irene Dunn, but folks, she was a slim, stunning brunette and one of the most talented stars in early Hollywood.

Richard Dix, it seems, is the star as Yancey Cravat, a larger-than-life lawyer, upright newspaperman, fearless gunfighter and ne’er-do-well carouser who spends a few months in Oklahoma during the land rush of 1889.

When he returns from Kansas with his wife, Sabra (Irene Dunn), he’s well known and adored by everyone. And why not: he’s a hail fellow well met, he defends the downtrodden, including Sol Levy, a little Jewish peddler, from the town bully.

He gets achieves everything he tries – the best home, newspaper, prestige, money, civilizing Osage (his new hometown) – but he needs new challenges, and he’s positively A.D.D. about making the land run of 1893. So he leaves his wife, his son, and his business for years, again and again, and each time, he baby’s and darling’s and sweetheart’s his way back into his own home.

At first, the dowdy, narrow-minded racist homebody Sabra doesn’t deserve Yancey’s true grit, but this script is good at spinning around each theme and character. It’s Sabra who raises the children, runs the house, leads the business to success and becomes the most honorable person in her town, and eventually in the whole Sooner State.

There are racist themes: a black boy lusts for watermelons and shucks and jives: “I shore am glad I came to Oklahomy.” Sol Levy is stereotypically small, weak and driven to make money. Sabra’s caucasian view is that Indians are dirty and filthy. When her son wants to marry an Osage chief’s daughter, Sabra is sarcastic: “There’s a nice problem, an Indian in the family.”

Isaiah – Negro servants didn’t have last names in pre-civil rights movies – is depicted as lazy and stupid, hanging from the chandelier while fanning the family at the dinner table. But by the end of the film, the race theme also spins around: Isaiah risks his life to save Sabra’s son, Cimarron, from a drive-by shootout, and Sabra learns that her bigotry is wrong.

Yancey is really a terrible father and husband; but his character spins a third time to he prove he’s caring and self-sacrificing when he defends the reputation of the town tramp, Dixie Lee, from the so-called good women, who include his wife.

That’s why Cimarron isn’t the overrated antique it seems to be, because it’s actually a portrait of complex human beings with Biblical qualities and outrageous flaws.

Trivia

Cimarron won the 1931 Academy Award for Best Production, and Best Art Direction. It missed in Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Cinematography.

It’s hard to believe that Richard Dix – who hammed it up as if he was still in a silent movie – could get an acting award, but even then the Academy made strange choices.

This was one of Hollywood’s first big-budget films: 5,000 extras, 28 cameras, scenes of wagons racing across grassy hills and prairie. It was also a critical success at the time.

Public Enemy, the starting point for all gangster films, was nominated only for Best Writing and Original Story. This was James Cagney’s breakout classic, but he and Jean Harlow were also overlooked.

The Front Page was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, and Adolphe Menjou for Best Actor, but it’s another classic that won no golden statues.