Cimarron Beat Sheet

Cimarron Movie Poster

Here is my attempt at the Beat Sheet for Cimarron (1931). If you would like more information about beat sheets and the 15 beats every great movies shares, check out this page. 

Opening Image – The film opens with the Oklahoma Land Run in 1889. The wagons, horses, and pioneers are waiting at the starting line until noon for the run to begin. 

Set-up – Yancey Cravat is beaten to his land by Dixie Lee, a lady of ill repute. He then travels back to his family and his in-laws in Wichita, Kansas to tell them about the Land Run.

Theme Stated  – According to the Blake Snyder, someone typically states the 'theme' to the protagonist around the fifth minute of the movie.  I believe in this case, the theme was stated by Yancey that Oklahoma is a miracle and a land of opportunity. However, it will be seen that the opportunity is for Sabra to grow into an independent woman. 

Catalyst – Yancey has decided that he wants to move to Oklahoma and be part of the town of Osage which has popped up overnight. His wife, Sabra, agrees to move with him. 

Debate – Sabra's mother is opposed to her moving to Oklahoma, just like she was opposed to her marrying Yancey. She tries to talk her out of moving. 

Break Into Two  – They arrive at the town of Osage and see what a frontier town complete with outlaws is really like. 

B Story – The love story is between Sabra and Yancey. 

Fun and Games – The two of them set up a home, and Yancey establishes a newspaper called the Oklahoma Wigwam. He is seen as a leading citizen and gives the first sermon at a makeshift church, during which he kills the leader of a gang who is wreaking havoc on the town. He later kills "The Kid" who has planned on robbing the bank. Sabra has a baby girl. Yancey decides to leave his wife in 1893 when a second Land Run is going to happen. Sabra does not want to leave the life they are building in Osage. She stays behind and runs the paper in his name.   He returns in 1897.

Midpoint – By 1907, Yancey has risen in stature and is running for governor of Oklahoma. Things look great for the pair. This is a false victory. 

Bad Guys Close In – Man approaches Yancey and asks him to compromise his values and help seize oil that has been found on the Osage Reservation. 

All is Lost – Yancey decides to throw away his chances to be governor by printing a piece in the paper supporting Indian citizenship. He then leaves his wife for a second time. 

Dark Night of the Soul – Sabra is left alone once again. This part of the movie is lacking as it does not show her struggles at all - almost like they don't exist. 

Break Into Three – Sabra has to make things work on her own. Sadly, this part of the movie is also missing and we move forward in time. 

Finale – Sabra has grown in independence and stature until she is elected to Congress. When visiting an oil refinery with other dignateries, a disaster is averted when Yancey sacrifices himself. She is able to talk with him before his death. 

Final Image – A statue modeled on Yancey is revealed celebrating the pioneer spirit of Oklahoma. 

4. Cimarron

Cimarron Movie Poster

I love old westerns. They bring back memories of childhood, watching John Wayne with my Daddy. That's why when I saw that #4 on the list was a western, I got really excited. What I found was that while this western wasn't exactly what I expected, it was fascinating in many ways.

Cimarron takes place in the early days of the Oklahoma Land Run in 1889. The tale starts on the morning of the Land Run, and the scene that ensues once it begins is utter chaos as wagons laden with people and men and women on horseback ride off to find their perfect claim. There's even a man on a bicycle in the run. It was amazing to me to watch this scene, and I wonder how many people and animals got hurt in its filming.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The tale centers around a pioneering newspaper editor named Yancey Cravat who moves to Oklahoma with his wife and son to be part of the excitement. He likens the results of the land run to the miracle of creation. They are joined by a stowaway, Isaiah, an African-American boy who has escaped the harsh realities of life as a servant in Wichita, Kansas.

Irene Dunn as Sabra and Richard Dix as Yancey Cravat
 in Cimarron

Yancey is an enigmatic figure. He is well known throughout the state and the territory. He was once a lawyer before becoming a newspaper editor. And he has a unique way at looking at the world. He truly believes in treating those around him with complete and utter respect. Where others look down on the Cherokee and treat them with disdain, he understands their plight and sympathizes with them. Along with the Indians, he also stands up for a Jewish man and a woman of ill repute. Further, he's an excellent shot and one of the first actions he does when he moves to town is to kill the leader of a gang. Ironically, this takes place in the middle of a sermon he's been asked to give since there is no preacher in town. The realities of the wild west! When he kills the outlaw called 'The Kid', he turns down the idea of a reward. He knew 'The Kid' before he had turned bad and felt that circumstances had led him to a life of crime. He felt bad for killing him but knew that he had to protect his family and community.

All of the above makes Yancey seem truly heroic. However, there was a huge chink in his armor: as the Allman Brothers would sing many years later, he was born a ramblin' man. He told his wife that the longest he'd ever been in a place was five years and it felt like a jail sentence. Once they were established in Osage, Oklahoma, Yancey decided to leave his wife Sabra with a son and a baby daughter in 1893.

Irene Dunne in Cimarron

To me, this is when I realized that the story was really not about Yancey, but instead about Sabra. She takes over the paper and makes it flourish. She still is true to him and leaves his name on it as editor. She knows he'll return. And he does in 1898 after serving in the Spanish American War.


Things look good again. Time flies and in 1907, he's running to be governor. Oil has been discovered on the Osage Reservation. When a city elder tries to get him involved in a scheme to take the oil from them, he is disgusted and chooses to write an editorial about the plight of the Indians. In this, he calls for them to get complete citizenship in the United States. His wife begs him not to do it because she knows it will ruin his chances in the election, but he says he must. Then he leaves her again.

Statue at the end of Cimarron

We jump forward to 1929 and see Sabra has modernized the paper, and it is thriving under her. She still believes in Yancey and has kept his name as the editor. Then by 1930, we see that she has been elected to Congress. She goes to visit an oil well with visiting dignitaries when an explosion is averted by a man who has sacrificed himself to save the rest. It is Yancey. His last words to her are: "Wife and Mother. Stainless woman. Hide me. Hide me in your love." At the same time, a statue is being unveiled to the pioneer spirit. When the cloth is ripped off, it looks exactly like Yancey and a woman is crouching behind him.

Okay, so I finished the movie and was confused. Was Yancey a hero or not? While the movie portrayed him as larger than life throughout and his wife never truly complained or got angry with him for his leaving, I felt cold at the end. I knew the story was originally written by a woman, Edna Ferber. So I decided to do a little research. What I found made the entire story make sense to me: Cimarron is a satire. Here, the backbone of building the community was this strong woman, Sabra. In the book version of the story, Sabra is shown as being even more self reliant. She only found her own power because Yancey left her, becoming a feminist in the process. Plus, she understood the importance of women to 'civilizing' the territory. Without Sabra and women like her, the author implies, the territory would never have truly been tamed. The irony comes to full fruition at the end of the movie when the statue is revealed to not be a woman but a man, Yancey, portrayed as the protector of the weak and the true pioneer.

The movie was adapted from the book by screenwriter Howard Estabrook. His treatment of the story left out the irony and left a much weaker story for it, in my opinion. Nonetheless, I marvel at the scope of the movie for the time it was created. It cost more than $1.5 million dollars to create, extraordinarily expensive for the time. The Land Grab scene included more than 5,000 extras. It is one of only two films to receive Academy Award nominations in every category. (The other was Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?)

Other thoughts:

1. I was amazed at the job the filmmakers did at showing how Osage developed from its earliest days where lawyers were working out of tents to settle land disputes to 1929 where it is a thriving metropolis. Each new year brought new buildings and modes of transportation. Further, the characters changed with the times. Really well done.
2. The filmmaker heavily relied on title cards to move from period to period. While some of this was fine, the ones that were full of exposition hearkened back to the days of silent pictures and seemed overly intrusive to the story. 
3. The evolution of Sabra from a bigot to an independent and tolerant woman was fascinating to watch. 

I will be putting up the Beat Sheet for this one soon.