Cimarron (1931)

Winner, 4th Academy Awards

Directed by: Wesley Ruggles

Starring: Richard Dix and Irene Dunne

Plot: An adventuring lawyer/newspaper editor settles down in an Oklahoma boom town.

Thoughts: It's not difficult to see why Cimarron beat out its competition for the Best Motion Picture award. It was the most polished out of the nominees and had that epic feel to it that the Academy likes so much. I enjoyed the film despite it being a bit long. Richard Dix was a bit bombastic with his acting, compared to his capable but subdued co-stars. The film's most famous sequence easily remains its best: the Oklahoma land rush scene is huge and starts things off with an energy that wasn't matched by the rest of the film. But that's okay, it's still an enjoyable way to waste a couple of hours.

Based on Edna Ferber's 1929 decade-spanning novel, Cimarron has the distinction of being a Best Picture winner that didn't make a profit during its initial theatrical run. Although liked by audiences and critics, the film was released during one of the worst periods of the Great Depression. Movies were a popular form of entertainment during the Depression, but 1931 was a particularly turbulent year for many Americans. The cost of making Cimarron made it one of the most expensive films produced at the time ($125,000 was paid for the novel rights alone).

Cimarron was released on DVD in 2006. The film was remade starring Glenn Ford in 1960 and is also available on DVD. According to IMDB, yet another remake is coming in 2010 but information on it is pretty scarce as of this writing. The 1960 remake was not nominated for Best Picture but earned Academy nods for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Sound.

Cimarron earned an unprecedented seven award nomination's, beating out The Love Parade's six nods from the previous year. In addition to Best Motion Picture, Cimarron also won Best Art Direction for Max Ree's convincing work on making the town of Osage, Oklahoma come to life and won Best Writing, Adaptation, for Howard Estabrook's screenplay. The film was also nominated for the following:

• Best Actor for Richard Dix's enthusiastic performance as Yancey Cravat;
• Best Actress for Irene Dunne's performance as Sabra Cravat;
• Best Cinematography for Edward Cronjager's work; and
• Best Director.

In Old Arizona (1928)

Directed by: Raoul Walsh and Irving Cummings

Starring: Warner Baxter, Dorothy Burgess, and Edmund Lowe

Plot: A duplicitous woman comes between a bandit and the Army man sent to catch him.

Thoughts: We begin our tour of the 2nd Academy Awards with the first talking Western. Westerns were a staple of the Silent Era so it only made sense for the genre to make the transition to talking films. Technically, In Old Arizona was considered a marvel at the time for being the first talking film photographed outdoors as having its entire soundtrack, talking and all, on film.

The film was based on the 1907 story, "The Caballero Way", which was the first of O. Henry's myriad Cisco Kid stories. "The Caballero Way" had already been adapted as a silent film in 1914, so this iteration could be considered one of the first remakes (a trend that continues today for better or worse).

Unfortunately, I didn't feel it held up very well as I felt the majority of the acting was on par with maybe a high school drama club. Warner Baxter as the Cisco Kid exuded charm and charisma in each of his scenes. Unfortunately, there are several scenes where he was not present and were instead "treated" to Edmund Lowe's bad Brooklyn accent while he mugged for the camera or the shrill Dorothy Burgess who never convinced me she was worth the attention of one of these guys let alone both of them. As I mentioned, Baxter was fun to watch and I have to admit that I liked the ending a lot.

Although nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year, In Old Arizona only took home a Best Performance by an Actor Award for Warner Baxter. The film also earned nominations for Irving Cummings (Raoul Walsh had to cede the chair for nearly all of the film after a traffic accident) for Achievement in Direction, Tom Barry's script adaptation for Best Writing, and Arthur Edeson for Achievement in Cinematography.