- published: 15 Mar 2014
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Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron.
Despite America being in the depths of the Depression, RKO immediately prepared for a big-budget picture, investing more than $1.5 million into Ferber's novel Cimarron. Director Wesley Ruggles would direct stars Richard Dix and Irene Dunne with a script written by Howard Estabrook. Filming began in the summer of 1930 at the Jasmin Quinn Ranch outside of Los Angeles, California. The film was a massive production, especially the land rush scenes, which recalled the epic scenes of Intolerance some fifteen years earlier. More than 5,000 extras, twenty-eight cameramen, and numerous camera assistants and photographers were used to capture scenes of wagons racing across grassy hills and prairie. Cinematographer Edward Cronjager spent overtime planning out every scene in accordance to Ferber's descriptions.
Like many of the movies of its time, Cimarron has been perceived to represent blacks, Jews, and American Indians in a stereotypical fashion. However, Cimarron is notable for the conflicting attitudes of the principal characters towards non-whites. Sabra Cravat refers to American Indians as "dirty, filthy savages" and refuses to allow her son to accept a gift of feathered headgear from an Indian. Her husband, Yancey Cravat, has a more sympathetic view, acknowledging that the Indians in the back of the church are not expected to give a monetary contribution to the purchase of a white man's church organ as they have had their land stolen by the white men.
Actors: Dick Rush (actor), Allan Sears (actor), Robert Adair (actor), Ben Corbett (actor), Jim Corey (actor), Buck Moulton (actor), Oscar Gahan (actor), Harvey Clark (actor), Lloyd Ingraham (actor), Buck Jones (actor), W.E. Lawrence (actor), Charles Le Moyne (actor), Charles Middleton (actor), Frank Campeau (actor), Silver (actor),
Plot: Buck runs into trouble when he buys a deserted cattle ranch that he turns into a dude ranch. To put on a show for the dudes, he sends his men after a nearby sheep herd with blanks in their guns. They are met with real bullets and one man is wounded. Then he learns that Boots, who helped him start the ranch, has been kidnaped and he heads out after her.
Keywords: cattle, kidnapping, ranch, sheepI met a dark-haired girl
In a blue cotton dress
She had a pair of old work boots on
And I asked her her name
And she told me and laughed
But my friends call me Cimarron
For it means that I live in the mountains
And I'm gonna go back there soon
For I need to be high and out of the city
To be closer to the moon
Cimarron, Cimarron, Cimarron
I hope you find your way home
She finished at ten but we sat at the bar
Drinking cola and long-necked beers
Two lost souls in harmony
Everything was clear
We walked in silence to my old red Ford
And we ran deep into the hills
Looked out over the lights of the city
At the night so clear and still
Cimarron, Cimarron, Cimarron
I hope you find your way home
Cimarron, Cimarron, Cimarron
I know where you belong
That was where I woke alone
With the birds of the first light
Sometimes I still drive up there
In the lonely time of night
Cimarron, Cimarron, Cimarron
I hope you find your way home
Cimarron, Cimarron, Cimarron
I know where you belong
Cimarron, Cimarron, Cimarron
I hope you find your way home
Cimarron, Cimarron, Cimarron