|
Cimarron | 
| Directors: Anthony Mann, Charles Walters
Actors: Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Arthur O'Connell, Russ Tamblyn
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $12.97
Buy New: $4.83
as of 11/25/2009 05:03 CST details
You Save: $8.14 (63%)
New (18) Used (9) from $4.82
Rating:  16 reviews
Format: DVD, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 147 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 1000036299
UPC: 883929005109
EAN: 0883929005109
Theatrical Release Date: December 1960
Release Date: August 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| | |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Set in Oklahoma from 1890-1915. A quarter century of change is seen through experiences of a pioneering couple determined to succeed in America. Based on a novel by Edna Ferber.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 883929005109 Manufacturer No: 1000036299
Amazon.com
The 1960 remake of Cimarron manages a slight improvement on the worst Best Picture (1931) in Academy Award history. Not that Edna Ferber's novel of pioneer Oklahoma was ever a movie natural. There's a plethora of themes--several species of prejudice, capitalism vs. charity, sons unhappily following in fathers' footsteps, and the irreconcilable tensions between a stability-craving wife and her footloose hero-husband--but the action is front-loaded and the husband (Glenn Ford) is offscreen for years at a time. Anthony Mann gets solo directorial credit, yet the movie seems more typical of his replacement, Charles Walters, a maker of pastel musicals. Most of the large cast comes and goes without establishing identities; Maria Schell's Sabra Cravat is tiresome as both ditz and pill. Photographed in CinemaScope and Metrocolor by Robert L. Surtees, the Oklahoma land rush is properly spectacular--though less impressive than John Ford's in Three Bad Men. --Richard T. Jameson
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
Great but marred September 19, 2009
magellan (Santa Clara, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Some great moments punctuate this movie but it also has many flaws. The land rush scenes were just spectacular, and used literally thousands of extras, who seem to stretch to the horizon in one shot just before the starting guns go off. The wagons race across the landscape, many careening and flipping over in spectacular fashion, and reminding me of nothing so much as the famed chariot race in Ben Hur.
But the movie fails to develop many of the characters, who just come and go. And even Glen Ford disappears for years at a time, especially toward the end. Still, most of the actors do well with their parts. The one exception is Maria Schell who is just tiresome as the whiney wife who simply doesn't belong on the frontier and should have stayed in her stuffy high-society cocoon back east.
Maybe that isn't her fault if the character was written that way, but by the end of the movie you are really tired of her character, who is constantly whining, complaining, and caterwauling about something that a real frontier wife would have taken in stride.
The cinematography is great though, and some of the character actors who appear throughout the entire film, such as David Opatoshu, Ann Baxter, Arthur O'Connell, Henry Morgan (of Dragnet and Mash fame) and Edgar Buchanan, do provide some continuity and development. But without Maria Schell's character the movie would have been so much better. Still, the movie has more good points than bad points and if you're a Glen Ford fan is certainly worth your consideration.
Cimarron...last western for the great Anthony Mann May 15, 2009
Grant Watson (NC)
CIMARRON(1960) Starring Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Constance McCambridge and Henry Morgan. A beautiful, technicolor, big screen gem.
Not the success that its 1931 predecessor was, and certainly not Mann's best western, it still remains my personal favorite of the two versions.
For one, Glenn Ford is a more likable leading man. Maria Schell is outstanding in this as Fords longsuffering wife. Her practicality constantly clashing with Fords crusading idealism and wanderlust. Anne Baxter is also a lot of fun as Fords sassy (and at one point vindictive) ex girlfriend.
The shot of the Land Rush race scene is outstanding, and tragic and the stunts actually made me cringe in a few parts. This was the first of what was to be Mann's run of "Epics". Cimarron would be followed by EL CID and THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
Having already cut his teeth and excelled at Film Noir with classics like "T-MEN" and "RAW DEAL", he then moved on to the western genre. Making his westerns gritty, dark and full of freudian subtext. He was a big fan of and influenced by Ford.
But there was something different and special about Mann's westerns. This is obvious watching his "WINCHESTER 73", "THE MAN FROM LARAMIE" "MAN OF THE WEST" and my personal favorite "THE FURIES". His career and talent is fun to watch and chart. His westerns were often noir'ish in style. His landscapes often dark and bleak and harsh. His use of rock and stone in his landscapes were often symbolic of the hard shells that his characters developed as a result of tragedy or betrayal.
Manns version of Cimarron was more akin to the colorful style of the 60s era "Epic". Glenn Fords unflexable morals and ideals as well as his seeming inability to explain them to Maria Schell give those moments a sort of painful tragicness to them. You keep rooting for him to explain why he is the way he is to Schell and you hope that Schell just might understand him. They have a great chemisty. The color is eye popping and luscious to look at. The scenes are indeed epic.
I highly recommend this one.
 The last and least of Mann's Westerns May 7, 2009
Trevor Willsmer (London, England)
The last and least of Anthony Mann's Westerns, 1960's Cimarron was originally intended by MGM as a Rock Hudson vehicle after the success of Giant. It's at once a lavish film and an undernourished one, not least because of the production problems that saw Mann's run of bad luck with epics repeat itself: after being fired from Spartacus at the start of shooting by Stanley Kubrick, on Cimarron he was replaced towards the end of shooting by an uncredited Charles Walters. It's all to easy to spot the join, with the many early exterior scenes that are very obviously and artificially shot on interior sets at the studio sticking out like a sore thumb with Mann's signature location filming.
Though remembered today, if at all, as doorstop soap operas, in their day Edna Ferner's novels were hugely controversial, and Cimarron was no exception, dealing along the way with racism, anti-Semitism and Indian land rights, though these are treated rather less boldly here than in the 1930 version (especially in the general release and European versions that trimmed a subplot with the leads' son marrying a Native American girl, though these scenes are in the Region 1 DVD). What's left is an ambitious saga, charting the changing face of the wilderness from the Oklahoma Land Rush to the 'civilisation' that comes with the discovery of oil and the big money to be made by a few, taking in the winners and losers strewn along the path of progress along the way, all nominally held together by the restless figure of Yancey Cravat (Glenn Ford). A man who tries everything but can never stay the course before chasing the next dream, he's held as the pioneer ideal, but it's clear that his long-suffering wife (Maria Schell) is the saga's real hero, setting roots and building a future. Structurally it's one of those books better suited to a mini-series than a film, while the rootless nature of its hero - who vanishes from the last third of the film almost entirely - leaves it feeling very unsatisfying. It doesn't help that the film's most spectacular scene, the truly epic land rush sequence, happens so early in the film that everything that follows seems an anticlimax.
Unfortunately the casting doesn't help. While Ford isn't as insufferably hammy as Richard Dix in the original, he never lives up to the great claims made for his character, and he's not helped by a bad haircut that makes him look like Oliver Hardy after a diet (it's no surprise that this film and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse pretty much ended his career as a top box-office attraction). And for all her efforts, Schell isn't able to exert the kind of charisma or star power that the problematic last third desperately needs. The supporting performances are highly variable too. David Opatashu, Arthur O'Connell, and Charles McGraw offer dependable turns but Russ Tamblyn is shockingly bad.
But ultimately the problem is that the film never seems to quite decide what it wants to be or what parts of the story it wants to tell. It just sprawls out in all directions, never building up much sense of drive or purpose, and even Mann's visual imagination deserts him for much of the film. Instead it's a film with a handful of memorable moments - the land rush sequence, played more for chaos and carnage than exhilaration, one terrific shooting after a lynching and an excellent scene with Aline MacMahon at a makeshift grave - stranded in a rather forgettable film.
Boasting a good 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, the only extra on the Region 1 disc is the original theatrical trailer.
 "Glenn Ford Series ... Cimarron (1960) ... MGM (2008)" September 23, 2008
J. Lovins (Missouri-USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
MGM presents "CIMARRON" (December 1960) (147 mins/Color) (Dolby digitally remastered) -- Our story line and plot, The epic saga of a frontier family, Cimarron starts with the Oklahoma Land Rush on 22 April 1889. The Cravet family builds their newspaper Oklahoma Wigwam into a business empire and Yancey Cravet is the adventurer-idealist who, to his wife's anger, spurns the opportunity to become governor since this means helping to defraud the indians of their land and oil --- Anthony Mann (Director), Robert Surtees (Cinematographer) and John D. Dunning (Film Editor), with the striking memorable score from Franz Waxman completely stirring the veins of drama, which will keep the heart pounding from the opening scenes to the end credits --- 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 --- Anthony Mann went from making westerns to epics, and with this film, he was in the best of both worlds --- 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 --- All the characters present in Edna Ferber's saga of the transforming of Oklahoma from territory to state made it from the first film --- 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 --- 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.
Under the production staff of:
Anthony Mann - Director
Edmund Grainger - Producer
Edna Ferber - Book Author
Arnold Schulman - Screenwriter
Robert Surtees - Cinematographer
Franz Waxman - Composer (Music Score) / Songwriter
Paul Francis Webster - Songwriter
John D. Dunning - Editor
George W. Davis - Art Director
Addison Hehr - Art Director
Henry W. Grace - Set Designer
Hugh Hunt - Set Designer
Otto Siegel - Set Designer
Walter Plunkett - Costume Designer
William J. Tuttle - Makeup
Arnold A. Gillespie - Special Effects
Robert R. Hoag - Special Effects
Lee Le Blanc - Special Effects
Ridgeway Callow - First Assistant Director
SPECIAL FEATURES:
BIOS:
1. Glenn Ford (aka: Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford)
Date of Birth: 1 May 1916 - Sainte-Christine, Quebec, Canada
Date of Death30 August 2006, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, California
2. Maria Schell
Date of Birth: 15 January 1926 - Vienna, Austria
Date of Death: 26 April 2005 - Preitenegg, Carinthia, Austria
3. Anne Baxter
Date of Birth: 7 May 1923 - Michigan City, Indiana
Date of Death: 12 December 1985 - New York City, New York
4. Anthony Mann (Director)
Date of Birth: 30 June 1906 - San Diego, California
Date of Death: 29 April 1967 - Berlin, Germany
the cast includes:
Glenn Ford ... Yancey 'Cimarron' Cravat (editor, 'Oklahoma Wigwam')
Maria Schell ... Sabra Cravat born Venable
Anne Baxter ... Dixie Lee (owner, Dixie's Social Club)
Arthur O'Connell ... Tom Wyatt
Russ Tamblyn ... William Hardy aka The Cherokee Kid
Mercedes McCambridge ... Mrs. Sarah Wyatt
Vic Morrow ... Wes Jennings (Cherokee Kid gang)
Robert Keith ... Sam Pegler (owner, 'Oklahoma Wigwam')
Charles McGraw ... Bob Yountis
Harry Morgan ... Jessie Rickey (printer) (as Henry {Harry} Morgan)
David Opatoshu ... Sol Levy (shopkeeper)
Aline MacMahon ... Mrs. Mavis Pegler
Lili Darvas ... Felicia Venable (Sabra's mother)
Edgar Buchanan ... Judge Neal Hefner
Mary Wickes ... Mrs. Neal Hefner
Royal Dano ... Ike Howes (photographer)
L.Q. Jones ... Millis (Yountis' henchman)
George Brenlin ... Hoss Barry - Cherokee Kid gang
Vladimir Sokoloff ... Jacob Krubeckoff (sculptor)
Hats off and thanks to Les Adams (collector/guideslines for character identification), Chuck Anderson (Webmaster: The Old Corral/B-Westerns.Com), Boyd Magers (Western Clippings), Bobby J. Copeland (author of "Trail Talk"), Rhonda Lemons (Empire Publishing Inc) and Bob Nareau (author of "The Real Bob Steele") as they have rekindled my interest once again for B-Westerns and Serials --- If you're into the memories of B-Westerns with high drama, this is the one you've been anxiously waiting for --- please stand up and take a bow Western Classics --- all my heroes have been cowboys!
Total Time: 147 mins on DVD ~ Warner Home Video ~ (8/26/2008)
one of my favorite westerns: beautiful and poetric September 9, 2008
antoine amiel (paris)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I know that this is one of the most under-rated westerns, but it also has its die-hard fans like myself who consider it a long-lost classic. I'm so happy it's finally on DVD. I think it's one of Anthony Mann's greatest films, much more sweeping and visually creative than the original, and I've always been moved by Maria Schriver's performance, and of course Glenn Ford who is always great. I think it is a particularly deep western- complex and interesting even when it fails at times... I think its epic ambition make it particularly enriching and fascinating to watch. Really beautiful at times...
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
|
|
|
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. Thanks for shopping with us! | |
