Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

CIMARRON 165 Woman. In other words, he commits the disastrous blunder of abruptly switching over human interest in the middle of his film from the central character to a secondary personality. The result, of course, is a weak, almost futile conclusion to what might have been a great picture. I can forgive Radio Pictures for ignoring the main issue of Cimarron and for making the development of Osage a secondary motif to the personality of Yancey Cravat, because in this they are merely acknowledging the American public's worship of the ego. But I cannot accept this sudden rift in psychology, this sudden concentration on Sabra Cravat being elected to Congress, with poor old Yance dragged in as a mockhero in the last few shots. It is all too ridiculous and far from convincing. Moreover, after the brilliant cinematic quality of the first half of Cimarron, I complain bitterly at the theatricalism of the concluding scenes, which attempt to attain something that is impossible in the naturalness of the film medium. During the most exciting portions of the picture, we have become attached to the leading characters, to Yancey, Sabra, Jess, Sol Levy, Mrs. Wyatt and all the other delightful persons who are struggling for a living in Osage. We have liked them playing with their proper vitality and, more or less, with their natural physical appearance. Suddenly, in the last continuity lapse of the story, approximately twenty-five years are whisked away, and we behold all our characters — who were comparatively youthful a few minutes previously — aged and positively senile. They have clapped on white wigs and crow's