terrible... so disappointed.

disgusting, overrated, pointless

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

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.

Though the 1931 version of Edna Ferber's 1929 novel is not any good, yet we make allowances for it owing to the times in which the movie was made. It seems to be trying to say prejudice is bad, but makes its point with stereotypes of African Americans, Jews, and Native Americans, often set up to show how enlightened Yancey is and what a great guy he is for coming their rescue. Yancey is also supposed to be enlightened when it comes to women, hence his defense of Dixie Lee, but this is done at the expense of women like Sabra, making her out to be narrow minded. And so, we handicap the movie for when it was made, making allowances for both the style and content.But when watching the 1960 remake, we lose all patience. To take an extreme example for comparison, we are glad to have "Birth of a Nation" (1915) as a document revealing the racist attitudes of the times, and as such, we watch the movie with fascination. But that does not mean we want the movie remade today, even if we could do it better, so to speak, by making it with sound, in color, and in widescreen.Perhaps the land rush for the Unassigned Lands in Oklahoma in 1889 begged to be filmed in color and in Cinemascope, but that could have been depicted in an entirely different story. Placed within a remake of "Cimarron," however, it is simply wasted. Some of the misogyny is eliminated by simply eliminating Yancey's bigoted daughter and by eliminating the persecution and trial of Dixie Lee. The African American stereotype is avoided by eliminating the boy who sneaked away with Yancey and Sabra early in the 1931 movie. However, Sol Levy is still depicted as the stereotypical Jew who is a helpless victim, which allows Yancey to play the savior.In my review of the 1931 version, I said that Yancey Cravat is an irritating character played by a bad actor, Richard Dix. In this 1960 version, Yancey is played by a much better actor, Glenn Ford, but he is just as irritating as ever, if not more so. However, the 1960 version makes apologies for him by having Sabra tell him she never wants to see him again when he refuses to accept the appointment as governor, instead of simply having Yancey abandon her again the way he did in the 1931 version.The melodramatic death of Yancey in the oilfield is eliminated, with Yancey dying in the First World War instead. A more modestly sized statue of Yancey appears at the end of the 1960 version, though with Yancey still towering over the Native American he is helping up.

This movie is an almost complete failure. Anthony Mann directed, but his signature style is absent.Here's what I liked:Overall, this is a very big budget production and there are some nice period costumes, sets and props, including some functioning early automobiles.The Oklahoma land rush scene is fantastic. This is really the only reason to watch this movie.Anne Baxter is pretty sexy, but doesn't have much to do. I would like to have seen her role expanded.Is this the only Western that ever had a Jewish character? Only one I can remember. Anyway, some hard hitting Civil Rights stuff, especially the anti-lynching part.I don't know where to start with the negatives:It felt more like a soap opera than a Western.I like Glenn Ford, but this role is just way, way too big for him. Doesn't even begin to pull it off.The lead German girl was awful.There's basically no heavy. A couple of racists who aren't well characterized at all, that's it.All kinds of crazy, inexplicable plot transitions, none worse than when Glenn Ford simply disappears halfway through the movie. What?

I've always liked the 1960 remake of the RKO classic Cimarron and have never understood why it gets panned by so many people the way it does. Director Anthony Mann who got fired towards the end of the film's production did a very good job with both the cast and the spectacle. The Oklahoma land rush scene was as thrillingly done as it was in the 1931 version.In fact truth be told, Glenn Ford did a better job as frontier renaissance man Yancey Cravat. Richard Dix though nominated for Best Actor in 1931 never did quite master the art of sound film and his star progressively sank lower and lower in Hollywood. Glenn is a strong heroic figure cursed with the fatal flaw of wanderlust.Truth also be told is that many different accents made up the western pioneer population. Maria Schell's German accent is most assuredly not out of place here and she holds her own with Irene Dunne's portrayal of Sabra Cravat.All the characters present in Edna Ferber's saga of the transforming of Oklahoma from territory to state made it from the first film. All of them meet during the Oklahoma land rush and while Glenn and Maria are the leads, the story of the film is what happens to all of them.One character is expanded considerably from the 1931 film. Edna May Oliver was Mrs. Wyatt who was a pioneer woman whose husband we never did meet. Here Mrs. Wyatt is played by Mercedes McCambridge who is married to Arthur O'Connell who is very important to the story. They're this hardscrabble share cropper family who get a real scrubby piece of land at the beginning of the land rush, mainly because O'Connell falls off the stagecoach right at the beginning of the land rush and Mercedes runs across the starting line and she claims the land right at the line.It turns out the land has oil and these people become the proverbial beggars on horseback. McCambridge remains unchanged by their sudden wealth, O'Connell is very much like that other nouveau rich oil millionaire that Edna Ferber created, Jett Rink. From people who the Cravats lent a hand to back in the day, O'Connell at least becomes an opponent.One character that was eliminated thank the Deity was the black kid Isiaih who hero worshiped Richard Dix in the 1931 version. In 1960 that kind of racial stereotype would not have been tolerated.The cast includes also such fine people as Anne Baxter, Edgar Buchanan, Russ Tamblyn, Vic Morrow, Aline McMahon, Robert Keith, Charles McGraw, all ably filling out parts from the original version. The land rush scene is every bit as good as the first time around.I'm at a loss as to why this film was panned the way it was. It's a very good western and fans of the genre will appreciate it.