8. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Plot Intro

It’s 1787, and the HMS Bounty sets sail from Portsmouth, bound for Tahiti to stock up on exotic fruits. The crew consists of its leader, Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton), the lieutenant, Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable- again!), a midshipman named Roger Byam (Franchot Tone), and collection of criminals and young men forced into a life at sea by press gangs. Bligh, however, quickly turns out to be the ultimate in tyrannical, unjust leaders, submitting many innocent men to flogging, imprisonment, starvation and keelhauling. This prompts an increasingly discontent Fletcher to stage a mutiny- and face the consequences of such extreme an action. It’s a true story, but many historians contend the accuracy of this version.

Paul says...

Here’s a film you can really get your teeth into. On the one hand, it’s a cracking good yarn on the high seas (lots of waves, but no pirates). On the other hand, it’s a parable about oppressive leadership, as well as the dangers of rising up against it. In both instances, it succeeds by doing most of the work for its audiences (i.e. characters’ motivations and the consequences of their actions are explained clearly) but it doesn’t patronise them by turning the whole thing into a Jerry Bruckheimer-esque effects-laden action flick. 

The inimitable Charles Laughton, the ultimate character actor in the early days of film, steals the show as the villainous Bligh. Bligh would have been an easy allegory for Hitler in 1935 but the writers don’t resort to portraying him as basically the Devil himself. When Bligh and his followers are evicted from the Bounty, Bligh becomes their only source of survival. His determination and resoluteness make him weirdly admirable (shame about the old underlying sadism but hey! Nobody’s perfect). For me, he overshadowed Clark Gable entirely. Gable plays far more engaging characters in the previous year’s winner, It Happened One Night, and the gargantuan Gone With the Wind. Here, he’s a pretty basic handsome hero and proclaimer of justice. 

It’s Franchot Tone’s Roger Byam that interested me the most because he seems to represent the pendulum that swings between the villainous Bligh and heroic Fletcher. Whilst he disapproves of Bligh’s ruthless and corrupt leadership styles, he also attempts to prevent the mutiny itself, pointing out that this, also, is illegal and would be considered treacherous in a court of law. By the end of the film, we realise that the entire tale is about him, as the script concentrates almost solely on his attempts to prove his detachment from the mutiny despite his lack of allegiance to Bligh. A complicated situation proving that, in a court of law, sometimes concepts of “innocent” and “guilty” are not as clean-cut as they seem.

The film’s not perfect- the natives we meet on Tahiti are distinctly non-South Pacific and are written as simple-minded, blank-smiling island folk (ahem, slightly racist, cough); the film’s last 20 minutes feel rushed and almost demanded an extra half hour in which Byam defends himself in a court of law; also, the characters who stay loyal to Bligh after the mutiny remain unexplored and I would have liked some insight into why they remain with their captain out of choice when he has acted so abominably. 

These are minor quibbles though, I’d recommend this film to most and, for us, it’s been refreshing to have a romantic comedy, then a sea-faring adventure after weeks of epic humanity-pondering in the very early Oscar winners.

Highlight

You can’t help but cheer during Byam’s final scene in the courtroom towards the end of the film. He exposes Bligh, and lectures the court on the perils of sea-faring and corruption and it’s stirring stuff.

Lowlight

The Tahiti islanders had almost nothing to do except be massive racial stereotypes. Even the director of King Kong is shaking his head.

Mark

7/10  

Doug says...

Pirates! Villainous Captains! Over-use of the word ‘Seamen’! The poster alone insists that this is a swashbuckling epic of a film, brimming with heroes and dastardly baddies, all set against the sweepingly romantic background of the roaring sea. It’s got all the ingredients of a superb flick: dashingly handsome hero Clark Gable, excellent character actor Charles Laughton, blonde dimpled ingenue Franchot Tone and some mildly racist stereotypes of frighteningly happy island-people - what more could one ask for? 

Plot-wise it doesn’t do much more than the age-old formula of ‘Dickhead Character Gets His Comeuppance’ in that Charles Laughton is pretty flat-out horrid and then gets chucked off his own boat by the heroic Clark Gable. One main point of discussion between me and Paul was whether Gable looks better with a moustache (see It Happened One Night) or clean-shaven (Mutiny on the Bounty). I think moustache but so far we disagree. 

Film-wise it’s fine. What annoyed me particularly was that the scrolling text at the beginning stated that the Bounty’s mutiny actually led to changes in how the naval forces behaved towards their crew. However after two hours of fairly simple plot, we don’t get any sense of how or what changed - and how the Bounty played any part in it. It feels a bit like they missed a trick, focusing too much on Laughton (who is, to be fair, splendidly nasty) and Gable (who is not quite up to his previous year’s performance). The whole thing doesn’t really have much of a pay-off, for all the shots of ships crashing through storms while sailors are being whipped. 

I think - as Paul says - they are trying to display a layered plot, with Franchot Tone  becoming the focal point, representing the struggle between duty and what is right. But not enough is made of this to actually have much of an impact, and it also happens in the last half hour which is rushed through whiplash-fast (one second he’s in court, the next he’s making a speech, the next the King is writing a letter, the next he’s on another boat looking chirpy). There’s so many plot holes and unanswered questions that I’m left wanting to google it to find out what actually happened. 

That said, it’s a fun Sunday afternoon picture and while I don’t feel it really deserves a Best Picture win, it’s got sailors and people rushing purposefully around boats while storms rage on in the background. 

Highlight

Charles Laughton wandering around just generally being awful to everyone.

Low light

Answers to how the Bounty’s mutiny actually changed naval practices are sadly lacking. 

Mark

4.5/10

7. It Happened One Night (1934)

Plot Intro

Sassy, strong-headed heiress Ellie (Claudette Colbert) has married a rich bloke that her domineering millionaire father disapproves of- so he pretty much imprisons her in Miami whilst her beloved is in New York City. Like any angry white girl, Ellie escapes and flees, with her father and various police officers in hot pursuit. On her road trip to NYC, Ellie finds herself struggling with life on a shoestring outside of her pampered bubble, so along comes temperamental unemployed journalist, Peter (Clark Gable) who works out who Ellie is, and therefore accompanies her to NYC to gain the story that will save his career. As the road trip progresses, the two leads discover where their real priorities and affections lie. 

Doug says...

We’ve reached the mid ‘30s and the first Oscar-winner not to be split over two years, but awarded for 1934 alone. History-wise, the world is in a bit of a state. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 is still affecting the lives of Americans everywhere, while over in Germany a certain Adolf Hitler is firmly in power as Chancellor and only five years away from initiating the Second World War. 

So it is a great surprise that the winner of ‘Best Picture’ 1934 is not a dark and depressing film with a heavy moral attached (see last week’s Cavalcade), but instead the first example of a Screwball Comedy. Screwball is a very particular genre, being a bit daft and with a romance central in a plot full of farcical happenings. This one features Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable (his first appearance in this list, but certainly not his last) as a rich heiress on the run from her father and a newspaper writer trying to scrape two pennies together being thrown together in fateful circumstances, hating each other, and then slowly falling in love through their various adventures. 

Sound familiar? It’s only the plot of 90% of all decent romcoms. This is the precursor of great romantic - slapstick filled - light entertainment. And It Happened One Night is not attempting at anything more than being greatly entertaining. For me one of the best things about it is the two leads who have crackling chemistry and Colbert in particular has a deadpan delivery that had me and Paul in stitches. Famously both leads disliked this film intensely and Colbert (who died in the 1990s) never understood its popularity - which to me makes the fact they seem to be having hilarious fun on set only more impressive. These actors are thoroughly professional. 

And while I’m going on about how funny it is (and it is still so funny), the film alludes quietly to the darker things without ever letting them overshadow the comedy. A woman nearly dies of starvation on the bus to New York - her weeping son says they haven’t been able to afford food for days - and the Great Depression looms briefly before Colbert’s character gives the woman the last of her own money. 

The heroes are intensely likable and both very funny. The humour is still fresh despite being 83 years old, and there isn’t a single boring moment in it. But more than that - the acting is extraordinarily natural and full of gestures and reactions that you are sure are pure improvisation by the actors. This is a truly flawless example of screwball comedy at its finest. 

Highlight 

The scene where Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert improvise being in a fight to get two police detectives to leave them alone is pure brilliance.

Lowlight

I feel like Claudette Colbert’s engagement party dress at the end wouldn’t have been so shiny. 

Mark 

A fully deserved - and my first - 10/10  (cue confetti cannon)

Paul says...

It Happened One Night had all the makings of a flop. Columbia Pictures would often have to “rent” unwanted stars from other production companies, so Gable was allegedly handed over due to an affair with Joan Crawford (according to IMDB anyway). Neither Gable nor Colbert wanted to be in the film, and both apparently made it quite obvious, prompting various re-writes to meet their demands. The film had a low-key release in theatres and was made quickly on a relatively low budget, and Colbert was so convinced that she would not win the Best Actress Oscar that she very nearly didn’t attend the ceremony (when the winner was announced, she was fetched from a train station, and accepted the award in her travelling clothes).

However, It Happened One Night was one of the biggest and most influential smash hits of the ’30s. It was the first film to garner the five most coveted Oscars - Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay (sweeties will go to anyone who can name the other 2 films to achieve this feat without IMDB-ing it). All of these awards are well deserved. Doug has already lauded the razor-sharp script, endearingly natural bitchiness between the bickering hero and heroine, and general feelings of liberating happiness that the film conjures up. So I will just say that I agree with him entirely and move on to my other point….

….which is about Screwball Comedy! Yay! This film pretty much kicked it all off. It has all the tropes: fast-paced catty dialogue; farcical situations; leads that hate-but-love each other; unsentimental romance; sexual references that may seem tame to us but were outrageous at the time; and, interestingly, a battle against concepts of class boundaries. These films (other examples are Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday and Arsenic and Old Lace) were huge in the ’30’s because it took the horrors of the Great Depression (rich and poor struggling together, unemployment, a scramble for a better life) and made them fun. True, some of these plot points have been seen in entertainment since Shakespeare’s time, but It Happened One Night smushed them all together to make a whole new genre. Just like Bridesmaids re-vamped the chick flick to make something more provocative and cutting edge, It Happened One Night did a similar feat in the mid-30’s.

Screwballs were also a clever way of getting around something called the Hays Code, which was rigorously enforced in 1934. Until now, our films have been part of what is known as the “pre-code” era, when sex and nudity were more freely displayed (ok, it wasn’t as if MGM was releasing hardcore porn, but female legs and male chests could be depicted without reproach). When the Code was enforced, such practices became illicit, so screwball comedies worked around this by heavily suggesting (rather than displaying) sexual urges and chemistry - to greater comic effect. In this film, Gable and Colbert hang a blanket between their beds in motel rooms for privacy. When they finally consummate their relationship, all we see is the blanket being torn down. Clever, eh? 

But enough historical drivel. Yes, I liked It Happened One Night too. After several hard-hitting and reverential Oscar winners, it’s a fun-filled breath of fresh air. I didn’t give it a shiny 10 out of 10 because I personally think the humour is not as uproarious and “Goodness gracious!” as it once was, but it’s funny, fast-paced and touching, and proof that even the most chaotic of productions can create works of art.

Highlight

The famous hitch-hiking scene in which Gable attempts to hitch a ride with his thumb and fails miserably, prompting Colbert to display her leg with tremendous success. Colbert apparently refused to do such an unladylike act at first, but when she saw the body double they’d employed, she changed her mind, saying “That’s not my leg!”

Lowlight

I wanted Colbert’s initial husband to be more villainous so I could support the central romance more. But, in all honesty, this is a minor niggle.

Mark

8/10

6. Cavalcade (1932/1933)

Plot Intro

In the opening scenes we are introduced to Robert and Jane Marryot (Clive Brook and Diana Wynyard), and their two sons, Edward and Joey, on New Years’ Eve, 1899. We know that they are upper class because they say things like “By George!” and “What the Dickens”, and have a team of pragmatic, peasant-esque servants. As the film progresses, we see this indubitably British family go through the major events of the first three decades of the twentieth century- namely the Boer War, the sinking of the Titanic, the First World War and the decadence of the ‘20s. But not the Great Depression, oddly enough. 

Paul says...

Good Lord, we were dreading this one! Doug read somewhere that, along with The Broadway Melody (which we hated), it is one of the lowest-regarded Best Picture winners. Plus, it has the lowest rating of all the Best Picture winners on IMDB. In actual fact, Cavalcade is nowhere near as bad as that, and it is actually a lovely insight into what appealed to audiences in the early to mid 1930’s. 

We’ve seen the “passing of time” structure before in Cimarron, and I think the earlier film did it better due to its concentration on the building of Oklahoma as a framing technique. Cavalcade is less grand because it concentrates on the personal and domestic tribulations of a small family during periods of strife. Plus it’s not interested in the staunchly patriotic “building a new civilisation” motif that the all-American Cimarron flaunted. 

It nonetheless has touching moments- the depiction of the First World War in particular brings a lump to your throat. This is now the third film in the first 6 years of the Oscars to tackle war. In 1933, in which the film was released, Hitler gained power, so murmurings of war may well have bounded across Europe. Cavalcade’s preoccupation with reflecting on the tragic events that opened the 1900’s (all of which were down to human error and complacency, and would be fresh in the memory of many movie audiences) would have struck a chord with enormous force at the time. The closing scenes even look forward to the future, with the main characters providing a stirring, if platitudinous, speech to the camera about the need for a peaceful society. Plus the film conspicuously begins and ends with the British National Anthem. It’s very poignant, although if Noel Coward intended to prevent another world war occurring then he did a bloody rubbish job of it, didn’t he? 

My problem with the film, however, is Noel Coward’s original play script (on which the film is based). My only other exposure to him is 1945’s Brief Encounter which, though touching, is still susceptible to vicious parody (which Victoria Wood has proven so well). In Coward-world the upper classes have awfully clipped accents (pronounced “ix-sents”). They stand with dignity even when their children die and act like they’ve learnt expression and gesture from a Victorian instruction manual on acting. The lower classes say meaningless maxims like “It is what it is” and “What happens, happens”, and are charmingly dim and raucous. It’s all very mawkish and sent us into fits of giggles most of the time, so the film lost a great deal of its power.

If you like old-fashioned “oh woe is me!” over-acting then this film is a lark, but most modern audiences would just scoff like we did. Nonetheless, Cavalcade’s saving grace lies in his historical significance, and in the scale of time and events that it covers. The leading lady, Diana Wynward, who was nominated for Best Actress, is vulnerable and touching, and gives the film a driving force so that you’re never bored. But, for me, Cavalcade is a far-cry from a full 10 out of 10. 

Highlight

A stirring and inventive montage of World War One, in which marching soldiers, dying soldiers, explosions, gunfire and pretty girls singing propaganda songs are mixed together forming a memorable 3 minutes.

Lowlight

Some awkwardly ancient acting and writing styles steal the emotion from even the most tragic scenes. 

Mark

4/10  

Doug says...

As Paul has said, I read somewhere that this film was said to be on the same level as the dire Broadway Melody (thinking of that film winning an Oscar still makes my teeth hurt). The expectation then was that we would be subjected to an agonising two hours that rendered us relieved to have finally escaped it. 

It wasn’t anywhere near that. For a start, it’s not boring, and I’m a huge fan of wordy stage plays - and this was taken from a Noel Coward play. I’m a sucker for human observation in my entertainment - and Coward delivers, with the servants’ lives noted in minute details - of course they are stoic and common sense-filled caricatures, but it’s interesting to see them given as much screen time as the ‘above stairs’ family. And that’s one of the most interesting things about this film for me - we are seeing one of the first Upstairs Downstairs/Gosford Park/Downton Abbey films. It’s a genre that has endured to the current day, and it’s intriguing to see how right from the beginning we’ve structured the plots to include both masters’ and servants’ lives. 

It bears similarity to Cimarron in the way it spans a great expanse of time, but where Cimarron seemed to do that almost organically, with Calvacade it jumps a bit awkwardly, and often labours its point. For instance at one point two lovers are on a boat. They’ve already made speeches in the previous scene about how they would have their honeymoon on a luxury ship, then the titles told us it was 1912, then they’re stood on the boat itself making ‘witty’ speeches about how they could easily die in the water, then finally they move away revealing an inflatable ring with ‘Titanic’ written on it. I’m sure the film-makers expected us to gasp at this, but we’d already worked it out about ten minutes ago. The director didn’t exactly credit the audience with intelligence. 

And then here’s my main bugbear. World War I was of paramount importance to contemporary history, and I understand the desire to cram it in to every film possible. However because it’s such a big issue - and back then was still very recent - once the film reaches the point of WWI, they get stuck there and the momentum of the film (moving quickly from Boer War to Titanic and onwards) falters. There’s a series of montages showing the ‘horrors of war’ and to me it all felt very dull and unnecessary. How much more interesting it could have been if they’d treated WWI with the same brevity as all the other historical events and thereby addressed more events. 

Finally there’s the ending, which takes the form of a huge warning against people being too ‘easy’ with each other (girls dancing with their shoulders uncovered, heaven forbid) and vicars preaching that we must take care not to get caught up in TERRIBLE SIN etc etc. It’s all very forced and a bit odd that Coward has slung some sort of moral in, right at the end. 

Apart from that, it’s a fun film and perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Coward’s writing is certainly a bit dusty, but it’s peppered with a few good actors (Diana Wynward as the film’s star is very good despite a hilarious ‘faint’) and some great characters, including the social climber Ellen who goes from housemaid to Kris Jenner-wannabe over the two hours. 

Highlight

The mother telling her small child who woke up and called for her: ‘Joey you awful child. How dare you make such a noise? What would you do if I spanked you soundly and sent you to bed?’

Low light

The odd preachy end (with the lead characters looking into the camera and declaring how we must remain 'dignified'), and the unusual over-use of montages. 

Mark

4/10

5. Grand Hotel (1931/1932)

Plot Intro

Five very different people collide together during their stay at the famous Grand Hotel in Berlin. Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) is a disenchanted dancer, worried about her audience numbers, but finds new life when she falls in love with an aristocratic Baron (John Barrymore) who is secretly bankrupt and resorting to thievery in the hotel. A millionaire businessman, Preysing (Wallace Beery) employs and lusts after a young stenographer (Joan Crawford), while one of his employees (Lionel Barrymore), who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, is spending his life savings on the holiday of a lifetime. 

Doug says...

Finally! The first film in our series without shuddering jump-cuts, odd cutaways or inexplicable plot points! It’s taken until 1932, but the film-makers have got their game-face on and are at last presenting us with a decently edited, carefully plotted film! 

So there are downsides: it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Joan Crawford in action and I have to say I prefer her when she’s played by Faye Dunaway. But in general, this is a huge step up in terms of performance and film-editing. I was going to put Greta Garbo in my list of ‘not so great things’ because boy does that woman overact, but I couldn’t do it. There is something so magnetic about her presence that all of the wild flailing in flared linen sleeves can’t undo her star power. 

The plot is simple and very classic ‘Stately Home Drama’ - people come and go, and so do their dramas. But we’re not made to feel that the individual dramas of the people are the focus here - in fact something much larger is. There’s no mistake to this hotel being based in 1932 Berlin. In 1932, a certain German politician was rapidly rising to power - to take the role of Chancellor in 1933. His name, of course, was Adolf Hitler. And while there was a lot of support for him, there was a wariness too. There’s no question as to why the true villain of this film is the only overtly German one (the adulterous, condescending Herr Preysing). Yup, it’s the German-hating period of the Oscars! 

This film would be a light piece of frippery were it not for several specific elements. The first is the lack of catharsis - when Garbo’s dancer character ends the film not knowing about a crucial plot-point we are left, pitying her but also dreading her future discovery of the fact. We see Joan Crawford’s character openly submit to what appears to be near-prostitution. We see (for the first time) the working class people’s drama: one hotel porter is worried about his wife’s being in labour. And the most important thing of the whole shebang is Mr Kringelein, beautifully played by Lionel Barrymore. 

A seeming ‘comic character’ (side-note: the amount of unfunny comic characters - usually with a stutter - so far in our list of films is sadly suggestive of Hollywood’s lack of imagination) - Mr Kringelein is a terminally ill clerk who’s come to blow his hard-earned savings at the Grand Hotel. He starts off insignificant but through a series of speeches and scenes, he becomes the beating heart of the film - standing up for justice, and the overruling of class’ privilege. It is through him that we view this expensive frippery-filled world, and through the people he likes and dislikes that we too warm to or distrust characters. 

What begins as a light comedy of manners becomes something far richer, with Mr Kringelein’s view of this glittering but sometimes false world becoming a portent of Germany’s ominous future ahead.

Highlight 

Kringelein’s drunken yet powerful speech: ‘Life, gentlemen, is wonderful but very dangerous. You must have courage for it, then it’s wonderful.’ 

Lowlight

Joan Crawford’s acting skills. I expected more, Joan. Bring me the axe…

Mark 

7.5/10

Paul says...

It is interesting that while our first Oscar winner, Wings, had a clearly-defined, linear plot, all of our subsequent winners so far have presented a more episodic, anthological plot structure. They have had starring actors, but accompanied by large ensemble casts, and numerous interwoven stories and sequences all based around one particular theme or setting, whether it be the backstage antics of Broadway shows, the First World War, or the development of Oklahoma City. 

Grand Hotel continues this trend, but set within the opulent surroundings of a luxury hotel in Berlin. The central themes seem to be fame and fortune- what these concepts truly mean, and what they are worth. Whether a fallen aristocrat is thieving from hotel rooms to make his way in life, an ageing dancer is worrying about her dwindling audiences, a businessman is desperately trying to make dealings that maintain his empire, or a stenographer/office clerk are seeking out ways in which to keep their head above water, the characters are entirely preoccupied with what they can make of their life both in finance and in notoriety. Could this be connected to Berlin being a scene of an infamous uprising at the time the film was made? I only have 500 words to work with, so I’ll leave the reader to answer that one.

Grand Hotel is the Gosford Park of its day. Large numbers of characters whose storylines criss-cross and collide in unexpected and sometimes touching ways. Whatever happens to the characters before they enter the hotel, and after they exit, is hinted at, and left for the audience to imagine. And as they leave with their own personal dramas, new occupants come in. Really, we are seeing these characters through the eyes of the hotel- we see a brief snapshot, but it’s a salacious and intriguing one.

Lionel Barrymore was the stand-out for me- he evoked a combination of tragedy and comedy in a man who has had to work constantly to stay alive, but now intends to live in the truest sense of the word. Joan Crawford was also engaging in her young pre-wire-hanger days, although quite frankly she could recite Mary Had a Little Lamb and I would hang on her every word. Although she became more synonymous with her feistier, bitchier roles in The Women and Mildred Pierce, here I found her endearing and sympathetic- even if she is nearly upstaged by her eyebrows.

Greta Garbo was less entrancing for me. Despite this being one of the first ever films with an expensive all-star ensemble cast, it is obvious that Garbo has demanded some individuality. She spends very little time with any other cast member except John Barrymore, and her flailing arm gestures and constant cries of despair left me cold. She was certainly an actress of her time (one of the biggest box office draws, in fact), but her career plummeted in the late-30’s, and she would retire in the early 40’s to live in seclusion. To be honest, I can see why- she seems to have had little scope for anything other than tragic glamour.

Overall, I would say that Grand Hotel is good but not great (and certainly not “grand”). Despite being the height of glamour and stardom in 1932, I found it whimsical to the point of being inconsequential. All Quiet on the Western Front had bigger things to say about warfare and even Cimarron had more scope and ambition. Grand Hotel has some involvement but my opinion is that a Best Picture winner should hit you hard like a hammer, and this film simply diverted me for 108 minutes. 

Highlight

Kringelein’s confrontation with his company CEO, Preysing, in which the former stands up for the Little Man with defiance and courage.

Lowlight

Greta Garbo’s “I want to be alone” overacting feels dated now. It’s how I behave when the wrong country wins Eurovision.

Mark

6/10

4. Cimarron (1930/31)

So wild that we accidentally got a Korean version...

Plot Intro

The film begins in Oklahoma, 1889, during the Land Rush, in which vast numbers of Americans raced to own millions of acres of unclaimed land. Amidst the melee is Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) who brings his beloved wife, Sabra (Irene Dunne), and son, Cimarron, to lawless Oklahoma to make his fortune as a newspaper editor. As the decades flow by, Oklahoma grows in commerce, and Yancey and Sabra come up against miscreant cowboys, racial tensions, downtrodden prostitutes and their own domestic and personal struggles.

Paul says...

My initial thoughts about Cimarron were, “Urgh, a Western. One of my least favourite genres.” I generally find them too drenched in machismo and artificial fight scenes. Thankfully, Cimarron goes beyond the conventions of Westerns by covering a vast time period and dealing with race relations and moral values in more detail, rather than goodies and baddies just shooting each other.

The film, in summary, is much like the Ancient Epics of Homer and Virgil. We have a hero who may be flawed in his childish desire for adventure rather than stability, but is admirable in his noble nature, fighting for what is right even in the face of death. We have a wife who is often left to fend for herself (Sabra is, at one point, compared to Homer’s Penelope in The Odyssey) but is stalwart and courageous in her own way. We have an episodic structure designed to display the hero’s supremacy in various ways, and teach the viewers how best to live one’s life. We have the hero’s and heroine’s children carrying on their legacy. And we have a story centred around the establishment of a new society in a previously uninhabited land. Cimarron is essentially Virgil’s Aeneid for 20th-century American audiences who wanted to celebrate the founding and development of their nation.

Is it effective? In some instances, yes. There’s a tremendous opening scene displaying the beginning of the Land Rush, in which hundreds of horses and carriages charge across empty fields to win the best piece of land they can find. The film also displays the passing of time skilfully by beginning each “episode” with a view of the same Oklahoma street. This shows its gradual transformation from cowboy-ridden shanty town to a metropolis of skyscrapers and motor cars. The characters also age believably. In fact, the side characters get most of the best lines and moments- particularly Sabra’s closest female friend, a prototype for Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey. 

On the flip side, Richard Dix’s overacting is so abominable that his inspirational speeches came across as trite to me, and I felt nothing during moments when we should have been cheering him on. There’s a disgracefully racist depiction of a black servant boy (there’s lots of, “Oh please sir, do take-m me to Oklahomey!”). The jumps in time are sometimes awkward and  will suddenly explain a great deal of plot through cue cards. Finally, Sabra gets so much character development in the final half hour that I found that I wanted the film to be about her, not her husband.

Cimarron probably won the Oscar because it’s very, very American, in the same way that The Aeneid is very, very Roman. But you get a good sense of scope and magnitude from it, even if it’s not the most emotionally involving piece. 

Highlight

The opening 5 mins- a masterclass in big-scale filming.

Lowlight

Richard Dix’s acting. There’s only so many big gestures one can take.

Mark

6/10  

Doug says...

One of the things that’s really becoming clear as we launch into our fourth (fourth!? already??) Best Picture winner is that film-making in general has changed. Where now audiences are lightning-quick to pick up on references, objects and plot points, the 1930s audience seemingly was not. The editing of this film is not unlike its Oscar-winning predecessors, with long camera shots pointing out the obvious (an example is when Yancey Cravat the protagonist is eating a sandwich and we are treated to a 20-second-long shot of the sandwich on a plate). So I’m having to try and shelve my annoyance at being spoon-fed these things, and focus mainly on the plot. 

And there are some good things here. By covering a period from the late 1800s right through to 1930, we are shown the gradual - and startling - development of Oklahoma. At the beginning chancers trying their luck are able to grab a piece of shrubland of their own, and we get to see these bits of rough land develop and transform at first into tented ‘offices’, then into basic wooden buildings, and by the end huge 1930s towerblocks, immediately recognisable to modern audiences. A street name is roughly scrawled on a piece of cardboard in the beginning, and by the end, we see the same name now on ‘modern’ signposts. It is a great insight into the quick and busy establishment of an American city. 

Another good element (although sadly underused) is Sabra, played by Irene Dunne. As wife of the (frankly bloody irritating) Yancey, she begins a small-minded wife and transforms into a congresswoman, who is accepting of her own child’s marriage to a Native American, and fights for equality. It’s a shame that the film chooses to focus on Yancey up till the last half hour, because it’s in this last half hour that the focus switches to Sabra and the film gets more interesting. 

Yancey as a protagonist is a bore. He vaguely gestures at some elements of ‘greatness’ - standing up for equal rights etc, but then wanders off and leaves his wife waiting for him for years at a time. While Paul has pointed out the Epic similarities, for me it doesn’t translate well to a modern story. Yancey just comes off as arrogant and annoying - and certainly no hero. The film itself tends towards unfortunate bouts of racism, along with unexplained plot points, reinforced by a lead actor who can’t really deliver his ‘stirring speeches’ with more than a damp fizzle of energy.

Westerns have never been something I itch to watch, and while this didn’t feel too Western-y (the section of the film about outlaws etc doesn’t last that long overall), this didn’t make me want to immediately seek out the nearest Clint Eastwood flick. Overwritten, overacted and overlong, it’s not particularly deserving of the Best Picture Oscar - but then it’s nowhere near as dreadful as Broadway Melody was. So all in all, it’s not terrible. 

Highlight

The comic side-character - a posh woman who reminded me of Eileen Atkins at her best, barging into scenes and stealing all the attention.

Low light

The odd lack of connection between scenes - events would happen and then not really ever be referred to again. The whole thing lacked cohesion. 

Mark

5/10