Exhibitors Herald World (Oct-Dec 1930)

20 EXHIBITORS HERALD-WORLD December 27, 1930 w NEW PRODUCT This department does not attempt to predict the public's reactions to pictures. It does, instead, present detailed and accurate information on product, together with the frank and honest opinion of the reporter. CIMARRON SUPERB! Produced and distributed by Radio Pictures. Assistant producer, Louis Sarecky. Author, Edna Ferber. Director, Wesley Ruggles. Assistant directors, Dorian Cox and Dewey Starkey. Cameraman, Edward Cronjager, Adaptation, continuity and dialog, Howard Estabrook. Art director, Max Ree. Sound engineer, Clem Portman. Film editor, William Hamilton. Cast: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Estelle Taylor, Nance O'Neill, Roscoe Ates, Stanley Fields, George E. Stone, William Collier, Jr., Robert McWade, Edna May Oliver, Frank Darian, Eugene Jackson, Dolores Brown, Gloria Vonic, Otto Hoffman, William Orlamond, Frank Beal, Nancy Dover, Helen Parrish, Donald Dilloway, Junior Jackson, Douglas Scott, Reginald Streeter, Lois Jane Campbell, Ann Lee, Lillian Lane, Tyrone Brereton, Harry Rocquemore, Nell Craig and Robert McKenzie. HERO OF THE WEEK Wi ITH beauty and fidelity born of painstaking care and infinite patience, "Cimarron" takes its audience through 41 years of expansion of Middle Western frontiers and at the same time reveals one of the most beautiful and dramatic love stories I ever have had the pleasure of witnessing on the screen. The personnel charged with producing the epic for Radio Pictures took upon themselves the making of a picture complete to the finest detail and at the same time redolent with a love so true and so dramatic that it enthralls those who behold its unfoldment. It would be a beautiful picture even if one should block out the eloquent backgrounds, leaving only the performances of Diehard Dix, the pioneer with God in his heart and guns in his belt; Irene Dunne, the Southern aristocrat who soils her hands to conquer Oklahoma; Isiah Jackson, the Negro boy who lives and dies for Dix; George Stone, the Jewish merchant who asks only the right to live, Roscoe Ates, the roaming printer who comes to stay; and of Estelle Taylor and Edna May Oliver. And if one blotted out the characters there would be a production with a background of historical significance enthralling in its stark beauty from the landrush in the opening scenes to the great city which time has builded at the end. To attempt to give credit to any one person, whether it be Sarecky, Ruggles, Estabrook, Cronjager or anyone else, would be preposterous because of the perfection of the product in its entirety. Dix reaches a tremendous peak in his characterisation of Yancey Cravat, the man of no pa--t; the lawyer and editor with tolerance in his heart; the man who thrives on the dust of the high road, who carries life into the Wilderness and, when civilization comes, turns to the hiph road again until there is none left. Irene Dunne, as his wife, born a Virginia Venable, develops with the years through his RICHARD DIX reaches a peak of excellent characterization as the "pioneer with God in his heart and guns in his belt" in Radio Pictures' "Cimarron." influence into a tolerant, lovable woman who lives only to follow him over that great path which he cuts through history. Loving him as she loves life itself, she carries on during the empty years in which he heeds the call of the restless blood in his veins. Estelle Taylor, proprietress of a house of illrepute and yet possessor of a human, understanding heart, also gives the finest portrayal of her career. Isiah Jackson, the young Negro retainer of Dix, worshipping him, idolizing him, plunges into gun fire to save Dix's son, dies with a bullet in his side, and does it with a reality which should live in film history. George Stone, the little Jewish merchant whom Dix saves from the heedless, unreasoning torture of the town bully, comes to church as Dix preaches and asks if he may worship a gentile God with those others who have gathered beneath a gambler's tent, turned for a moment into a shrine. Ates, the wandering printer, sets type for Dix down through the years, graying and bending with their passing — living the fiery life of his employer vicariously as he sets his type and hoping, as Miss Dunne hopes, that Dix will return to that which was a frontier but which now is a prosaic Midwestern city of streetcars, automobiles, tall buildings, law and order. Dix, in these years, rides with Roosevelt in Cuba. He returns in time to plead successfully that Miss Taylor, branded a public nuisance and facing a jail sentence, be freed because she is not responsible for the life she leads — and because the man who first wronged her, as well as the townsfolk, are responsible. As he weaves in and out of conventional life, he permits his boy to marry an Indian girl because they love each other. He battles for fairness in the treatment of the Osages who have been crushed and robbed by a heedless government. In this last fight, he loses a chance to be governor, but wins a place in history for his stand. And, through these years, Miss Dunne carries on as the editor of the newspaper which bears his name as proprietor. Honor comes to her. She is elected senator. Old friends and new gather to pay tribute. Edna May Oliver, Stone, Ates and those others who have surrounded her, who have helped her, and who have loved the reckless, honest, tolerant as she has loved him, are there. Proudly, she introduces her family — all save one, who is now only a legend. Outside the hotel where all have gathered, a statue is being unveiled. She cannot pause for this, but must inspect the oil fields, growing, bustling and roughly romantic. These fields, developed by the restless brood, are the pioneers' last stronghold. An ambulance call is sounded as she arrives. A worker tells her that a tube of nitroglycerin, being lowered to blast open a well, was driven out by rising gas — that it threatened the lives of scores if it struck the ground. He tells her that one of the men canght it and was crushed by it — although he averted the explosion. His name? Well, they called him "Old Yanse—" With his wife's arms about him in the center of an oily field, Yancey Cravat dies. He dies with that old word of endearment for his wife, "Sugar," on his lips. And, in the city, a few miles away, the statue of the pioneer is unveiled. It is Yancey Cravat. — Edward Churchill. Hollywood. * ALOHA POWERFUL. Produced by Al Rogell. Distributed by Tiffany. Directed by Al Rogell. Cameraman, Charles Stumor. Sets, Al Metcher. Original story by Thomas Ince and J. G. Hawks. Cast: Ben Lyon, Raquel Torres, Robert Edeson. Alan Hale. Thelma Todd, Miriam Douglas, Otis Harlan. T. Roy Barnes, Robert Ellis, Donald Reed, Dickie Moore and Al St. John. /\LOHA" is the effectively handled story of a half-caste girl of the South Seas who loves a white man, marries him, gives him a child, and then takes her life because she does not feel she is worthy of him. Al Rogell's direction has whipped a splendid cast into line and