This film starts out strongly with the Oklahoma Land Rush. This film rendition of that event is visually stunning and manages to depict the hopes and the sorrows of pioneer life. The scene of hundreds of pioneers on wagons and horseback, and even walking, is one of the more impressive movie depictions of an historic event that I have ever seen.Then, as Glenn Ford and his wife (Maria Schell) settle down to run a newspaper, the focus of the film changes to another bold topic -- racial prejudice against Indians and Jews, both in the community and by the wife. Make no mistake, this is not simply a good White against bad Indian type of western film. This is about racism.In my view, this is one of Glenn Ford's better roles, and certainly one of the finest productions he was ever in. Although I had liked Glenn Ford a lot when I was younger, I had forgotten just how good an actor he was. Here he shines with the Metrocolor highlighting the scenery. Maria Schell, whom I do remember only slightly, is quite good as the wife. Anne Baxter's role as the scheming owner of a brothel...well, it almost seems as if her character is stuck out there with little to do, other than to facilitate the plot...probably not fleshed (pardon the pun) out that well. Arthur O'Connell is good and solid, as always. Most of the other character actors here play utilitarian roles.The film is longish -- 147 minutes, yet, for me, it didn't seem to lag at all. Not being familiar with the novel, the ending was a surprise.Recommended.

"Cimarron" is the saga of a couple who head West for the great Oklahoma land grab and the life they carve for themselves after failing to get the piece of property they wanted (it's been snapped up by the husband's ex-girlfriend, a hooker named Dixie). More specifically the movie deals with the husband's wanderlust and penchant for taking up lost causes, which doesn't sit well with the wife, who desires security and respectability. They fight a lot and make up, and it gets tiresome after awhile. The couple is played by Glenn Ford and Maria Schell. Ford plays a man who deals with things, and one wonders how this couple ever got together in the first place. Dixie is played by Anne Baxter, but her presence in the film barely registers.There's a scene where the wife confronts Dixie in her "social parlour" (Dixie has sold the coveted land in order to pursue her former career choice, and hubby's been off adventuring for five years, and there's been no mail). After more histrionics and a torrent of tears, in a scene without much purpose, the two gals see eye to eye. One knows this because, as she exits the "social parlour", the wife is dissed by two respectable ladies, which prompts her to wiggle her you-know-what so violently I feared she'd get whiplash.This train wreck lurches ever onward in fits and starts. Characters come and go, and none of them gets the screen time to establish a real presence in the story. Sub-plots are snuffed out when characters simply fail to show up again. Even the protagonist/hero (Ford) goes MIA for a huge stretch, which finally derails the film. It feels as if a lot of scenes were cut out, making me wonder if this film was initially longer - and better - and the studio hired someone with a scythe to "trim" it. I like director Anthony Mann's more modest 50's westerns very much, but the mega-budget "Cimarron" seems to be the one that got (taken) away from him.

CIMARRON (1960) was MGM's big Cinemascope/colour remake of RKO's 1930 epic production of Edna Ferber's classic story of the same name. From a screenplay by Arnold Schulman it was, I am loathe to say, unevenly directed by Anthony Mann.I am quite astonished - even aghast - that some reviewers on these pages elected to award this film a seven, eight, nine and in some cases a ten star rating? Some even hinted that it is Mann's most underrated western and could be his best work. "Cimarron" is nowhere near his best work! His best work is "El Cid" (1961) and his best western is "Winchester 73" with "The Naked Spur" coming a close second. "Cimarron " isn't even a good western! Not in the normal sense of what is regarded a good western like "Shane", "The Searchers" or "Last Train From Gun Hill". Even Ford's "The Sheepman" is a superior western to "Cimarron"! More lighthearted - sure but much more fun to watch!The first half of CIMARRON isn't at all bad and contains the best staging of the 1889 Oklahoma land rush ever put on the screen and in widescreen too (though in 1992 Ron Howard made a good fist of it in "Far & Away"). But let's face it the second half is relentlessly boring and just drags and drags! Firstly Anne Baxter, who has third billing after the leading lady Maria Schell, is written out of the film which I suppose isn't very noticeable since she didn't have a very important role in the picture anyway. But then Glenn Ford - the star of the movie - is also written out of the picture and only makes a brief and perfunctory reappearance just before the last reel. Then he's up and gone again never to be seen in the movie any more. With its star gone from the film the picture loses much of its balance and never regains the stature it had in the first half. Of course the story is the old chestnut of the mismatched couple who get hitched - she wants to play house and raise a family - while he wants to be charging up San Juan Hill, winning battles wherever they are and never seems to want to come home to his lovely wife. Well, to my mind any man who could leave the stunning Maria Schell - even for a long weekend - isn't playing with a full deck! Hmmm!Nope I'm sorry but I really don't think that "Cimarron" is all that great a movie! There are some great things in it! Besides the gorgeous Miss Schell there is the fine Cinemascope/Colour cinematography of Robert Surtees, the elaborate score by Franz Waxman (his Anthem like choral Main Title and his recurring main theme throughout plus his frenetic music for the land rush is outstanding) and the land rush itself is wonderfully exciting to see but there is nothing in the turgid second half that can persuade me to give this movie any more than a three star rating. Pity!!

Martin Scorcese has called Anthony Mann Hollywood's most underrated director. He's right of course. Mann is a God. It's a shame some of his Westerns have never been released on DVD or that some of his widescreen Westerns such as The Far Country and Bend in the River have only been released on pan and scan full frame videos and DVDs. At least Cimarron is available on video in widescreen. Perhaps you need to have seen a number of Mann's films in order to appreciate Cimarron, Mann's last Western, and how moving it is at certain points. There's an amazing shot of Glenn Ford leaning against a post in his home as he waits for his wife to see that he has finally returned home after being gone for five years. Glenn Ford plays a typical Mannian hero who is on the side of the law but not a lawman himself and who is unable to settle down in a home with a family. The only other Western Mann made with a happy ending is The Tin Star. There Henry Fonda (the hero) rides off with his wife after putting on a sheriff's star to help out the local sheriff. But even this happy ending falls short. Fonda takes no action, and the young lawman (Anthony Perkins) does the job just fine all by himself. Cimarron is kind of a sequel to The Tin Star. It begins with Ford playing a family man going out West with his new wife. But things quickly get rough. The Oklahoma stampede looks like the chariot race in Wiliam Wyler's Ben-Hur. Ford upholds morality and civil rights, but not as a lawman. After killing the bad guy, he becomes a crusading, liberal newspaper man. He's Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne in Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence rolled into one. But unlike Stewart, who goes on to be a politician, he turns down a job as governor. (Ford won't accept the reward money for killing outlaws either.) His long suffering wife finally leaves him, and he never reappears as a character in the film except in a voice-over. What is most haunting about the film is Ford's disappearance form it for long stretches. He basically abandons his family, fighting first as a rough rider in the Spanish- American War and then again in WWI. Mann goes into the melodramatic territory of Douglas Sirk, with Mann as a failed authority figure and patriarch. He fails to save the son of an old friend from becoming an outlaw. Ford loves his one child, a son, very deeply, but he nevertheless is not exactly an ideal father given his absences. Anthony Mann was an orphan who went to the school of hard knocks in New York. It's hard not to see Cimarron as his own love letter to the father who abandoned him as a child. In any case, Cimarron is a haunting film, well worth seeing, just like Mann's other films.