Cimarron (1960)

(On Cable TV, July 2019) The original 1931 Cimarron is sometimes held up as one of the worst Best Movie Oscar-winners, and that’s both untrue and unfair—while the plot is scattered, it does begin with the anthology-worthy Oklahoma Land Rush sequence, grandiose and spectacular. Since the 1960 remake of Cimarron doesn’t have the Oscar-winning pedigree of the original, I watched it with an overriding curiosity—would it manage to top the original’s Land Rush sequence? Would it fix the original film’s third-act plot problems? It begins unpromisingly, spending too much time setting up its characters prior to the Land Rush. But the showcase Land Rush caps off the first act and present a credible colourful recreation of the event, complete with hundreds of horses and carriage wagons crossing the frontier in a mad dash. Many bone-crushing accidents quickly follow. Much of the original plot remains intact, save for a good number of improvements to the characterization and what feels like a snappier pacing. Alas, Cimarron—once again—seems overpowered by its charismatic male lead, here played by Glenn Ford. Ford’s character is likable, decisive, admirable … and completely steals the spotlight away from Maria Schell’s character, which is too bad because, as in the 1933 film, her character is the film’s protagonist as her husband increasingly disappears from the story, leaving her to pick up the task of colonizing the west. This remake does improve upon the original in several ways—including a far more nuanced portrait of Native Americans, a much better visual portrayal of a city’s development over twenty-five years, and a more satisfying end for the hero—but it does remain in the same generally unsatisfying league, somehow missing the extra spark that could have made the movie that much better. The problem may be a far too slavish attitude toward the original material, which doesn’t quite work as-is on-screen. No matter the reason, this Cimarron is, by virtue of colour cinematography and a snappier pacing, a bit more accessible than the original … but it could have been quite a bit better.