1931 - Cimarron

Lyndsay: What this movie can boast is the worst hairdo I have ever, and I mean EVER seen. It even beats Javier Bardem's character in No Country for Old Men (2007 winner- post to come!). Yancey Cravat, the love to hate 'em main character of the movie is sporting the "side part sweep and curl" as I'm going to call it. Luckily the hair was so distracting that at times I forgot how much I hated him and didn't slap Jon in retaliation for how pig-headed and disrespectful men were back then. Which brings me around to my thoughts of the movie as a whole- my hate for this character, in my mind, is a good thing. Considering this was 1931 and the technology is appallingly bad (it was a struggle to see and hear anything going on), I was surprisingly into this movie. I got into the story and even laughed at some of the jokes that were made. The movie makes an attempt at liberalism, showing the struggle for equality for blacks, Native Americans, and women- but also manages to land each of those characters directly into their respective stereotype. Although the acting left a lot to be desired (as Jon I'm sure will describe in more detail), it probably did give a marginally accurate glimpse into frontier life to a 21st century city girl- and boy am I glad to be one. Grade: C+.

Jon: I don't use a typewriter to compose documents, and I don't use oil lamps to light my house at night, so I am not ashamed to say that this movie did not entertain me due to its technological short-comings. I'm not looking forward to any of the movies before the 1950s for exactly this reason. The sound is atrociously bad to the point where you can barely understand any of the dialogue. The acting may have been adequate at the time, but I will take it out of context and state that none of these characters were realistic for the time period portrayed in the movie, or any time period, for that matter. Yancy Cravat's character is that of a pioneer in the 19th century who sets out to tame the wilderness in Oklahoma with his wife and children, but he's the kind of guy who craves chaos and soon rambles on and abandons his family. This is a pretty dishonorable trait, yet his wife clings to his memory and cherishes him when he periodically returns without notice and then disappears again. His character is over the top and his manner of speaking is excessively deliberate, which is what ruins old movies for me. People didn't act like people, they were not believable - they continued the Vaudevillian traditions of the early 20th century. This may have been the best Hollywood had to offer at the time, but I'm not about to start cherishing old relics for the sake of historical value. This movie does not entertain. Grade: F