Michael O'Keefe This is director Anthony Mann's reboot of the 1931 Oscar-winning saga about frontier life in Oklahoma. Glenn Ford plays Yancey 'Cimarron' Cravit, a survivor of the Old West with a devil-may-care attitude toward life and the future. His wife Sabra (Maria Schell) leans more toward a civilized way of living. The couple will join family and friends in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889. Yancey does his best to stabilize a free thinking, free speaking newspaper; get in the middle of mixed feelings towards the Native American Indian and flirt with thoughts of being the governor of the young state. Based somewhat on the writing of novelist Edna Ferber and the almost 2 and 1/2 hour long film will afford a myriad of stars like: Anne Baxter, Arthur O'Connell, Mercedes McCambridge, Charles McGraw, Vic Morrow, L.Q. Jones, Russ Tamblyn, Henry Morgan, Royal Dano, Aline MacMahon and Edgar Buchanan.

JohnHowardReid The logistics of "Cimarron" are exciting enough. At the time, it ranked second only to "Ben Hur" for the highest number of speaking roles, 368, in M-G-M's history. Its locations in south-eastern Arizona also involved the largest movement of M-G-M equipment and personnel ever undertaken in the United States.Unfortunately, impressive statistics do not in themselves a gripping picture make. This film certainly scores in production values, but falls down badly in entertainment.True, the action scenes are bravely and handsomely staged. But the film is not content merely to reproduce and perhaps go one better than the similar showdowns in the original "Cimarron:. It has attempted to refurbish the basic story in overblown detail. But the story itself was slight to begin with. And, let's face it, its two main characters are not all that colorful. Both Yancey and Sabra are little more than stereotypes. Despite his best efforts, Mr. Ford's charm wears pretty thin over 2¼ hours. As for Miss Schell, she is a long-suffering bore. Surprisingly, the original itself ran 131 minutes. But pacy playing and vigorous direction made short work of it all. In this remake on the other hand, thanks to overwritten dialogue, over-emotive acting from Miss Schell and lethargic direction in its domestic scenes, 136 minutes becomes very tedious sledding indeed.

jacobs-greenwood This big sprawling epic remake of the Academy Award Best Picture winner Cimarron (1931) was directed by Anthony Mann, based on the same Edna Ferber novel but with a much different screenplay from Arnold Schulman.The first half of the story is focused on Yancey 'Cimarron' Cravat, who seems to know everyone, and starts just before the Oklahoma land rush of 1889 while its second half focuses more on Cravat's immigrant wife Sabra, and other characters. Glenn Ford plays the nicknamed title character, Maria Schell his wife, and various (uncredited) actors play the Cravat's son, named Cimarron, through the 25 year story, during which Yancey is missing for fifteen! Running nearly 2 and a half hours, it's more than 15 minutes longer than the original.Anne Baxter, Arthur O'Connell, Russ Tamblyn, Mercedes McCambridge, Vic Morrow, Robert Keith, Charles McGraw, Harry Morgan, David Opatoshu, Aline MacMahon, and Edgar Buchanan play other significant roles in the film's plot. Mary Wickes, Royal Dano, and Vladimir Sokoloff are among those who also appear.'Cimarron' Cravat (Ford) is an American original, a man who has to be where the action is. Hence, he's taken his new bride Sabra (Schell) to the cusp of what will become Oklahoma, the territory about to be settled in a mad rush by those who want to stake their claim to a 160 acre parcel of government land, "first come, first serve". People have come by covered wagons, and on horseback and bicycles, to participate.The Cravats met and assisted poor Tom Wyatt (O'Connell), his wife Sarah (McCambridge) and their eight daughters on their way to the event. Sarah was also nearly accosted by three ruffians, and former acquaintances of her husband's, the Cherokee Kid (Tamblyn), Wes (Morrow), and Hoss (George Brenlin).At the gathering "festival" the night before, Cimarron seemingly knows everyone they come across including newspaper owner and editor Sam Pegler (Keith), his wife Mavis (MacMahon), their printer Jessie Rickey (Morgan), and photographer Ike Howes (Dano). He also saves and befriends an Indian, his squaw, and their baby while making enemies of Bob Yountis (McGraw), who doesn't think "their kind" should be allowed to participate in the land rush. Cimarron also runs into Dixie Lee (Baxter), who (it will later be learned) was one of the women in his life before Sabra, and a pretty serious one as well.During the spectacle itself, the Indian's wagon is overturned and consequently Pegler is killed because of Yountis's aggressive and intentional actions. Wyatt misses his chance to claim prime land but his wife Sarah is able to claim the barren land just inside the border. For Yancey's part, he's beaten to the land he'd picked out by the only other one who knew about it, Dixie. So, he becomes the editor of the 'Oklahoma Wigwam' when Mavis decides to go back East. Jessie stays on to work for Yancey.The Cravats settle in the town of Osage, where Yountis continues to cause problems for others including being a bad influence on the Cherokee Kid, who was the son of a man that used to employ Yancey but had lost his fortune to the government in an eminent domain type transaction. Sol Levy (Opatoshu) becomes a temporary victim of Yountis's prejudice and influence over the Kid, so Sol's naturally befriended by Yancey, who ends up killing both Yountis and the Kid, in time. One outcome of Yountis's killing is his "adoption" of the Indian's wife (Yountis had killed her husband) and her child at about the same time that the Cravat's son Cimarron is born. Buchanan plays the town's judge, who rejects Yancey's plea to let the Indian child go to school with the other children.As five years pass, Yancey is more interested in being involved in other world changing events, like the opening of Alaska and being one of Roosevelt's Rough Riders, than he is his family. Dixie finds that she has no influence over him either and, when she's unable to convince him to leave Sabra, she returns to her former profession, only this time she's the owner of her own "Social Club" instead of being one of its girls.With Jessie's help and Sol's friendly financing (he'd begun humbly as a storekeeper himself), Sabra grows the newspaper (eventually into a conglomerate of sorts). Meanwhile, due to Yancey's earlier advice, Wyatt finally struck oil, becoming one of the richest men in the country. When Yancey returns, he's appalled that Wyatt has taken advantage of the Indians by purchasing the oil rights for their reservation. He uses the paper to embarrass Wyatt and his friend Senator Rollins (Robert Carson, uncredited) such that Wyatt tries to manipulate Yancey into accepting the state's governorship in order to control him. Naturally, Yancey refuses to kowtow to their wishes, upsetting Sabra and causing him to disappear again.Ten years pass before Sabra learns the fate of her husband, he'd died fighting World War I. Though Wyatt had planned to recognize her as a symbol of pioneer spirit, she insists at the paper's 25th anniversary, with all including her estranged son and his Indian wife (the Cravats had raised in their home) and Mavis in attendance, that the sculptor (Vladimir Sokoloff) recognize Yancey instead.

tedg I did not see this when it was new. I remember thinking that it wasn't worth the effort then. It is less worth it now.Its device is its scope, both in time and size. There are not one but two land grabs. it spans 25 years and much attention is spent on the theatrics of the sets. It must have been a strange year for this to have done well. At least we can value it to the extent that its success for Columbia made the scope of Lawrence of Arabia possible for MGM.The story here is only there to support a celebration of settlers of Indian territories and to pull out a specific type which we are to admire as an ideal, an ideal American.He is a champion of justice and a man of action. His adherence to certain principles punishes him. He is a proponent of civil rights here coded as Indian rights. What's not to like?Well. He loves the adventure of the land. We get great vistas that anchor him in the place, a convention of Westerns since Ford. But he is not a man of the land, he is a city boy who likes adventure. That's this film's basic undoing of ideals.It's reflected in the parallel western convention of woman as place. This guy loves deeply but he just can't settle with a woman. We see two.When they meet, they talk of wives as mothers, companions and lovers. We are to admire that he does not need the first, is companion to nearly everyone and is deep in his love.The narrative power of this idea by itself would be weak in any package. It is even worse here because of the inept direction. We see this more sharply now because of the obsolete acting and staging styles.Ann Baxter is a pretty prostitute whose story of self is close to our hero. Though she has less screen time than the immigrant wife, we are to see her as genuine. It's really about her as the land, as the place, and why it isn't the blond wife.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.