Over the years I've poked a wide share of fun at Richard Dix - his cardboard characters, his stiff, 5-&-dime-Barrymore affectations, his voguing & posing, his unfortunate affliction under Valentino-style make-up, his swaggering dime-novel gait . .
And sure as sun-up, Cimarron has no sparsity of any of those conditions . .
But -
(And, just like the lost little boy said to the lifeguard: it's a big but - )
While watching this movie for the 3rd time this afternoon, I had my first opportunity to really study the "sermon tent scene", and I got to say-
From the time Richard Dix walked into that tent, to the aftermath of his "smokin' " those "bushwhackin' polecats", that man was on fire! His lines were crisp and immediate, his smile truly magnetic, his gestures smooth and yet commanding . . and damn if the direction & camera work didn't fall flawlessly right in behind his lead.
Brilliant!
The rest of this movie? Still, as ever, IMHO, very much a matter of taste.
But for that one scene - reassuring the Hebrew parishoner of his welcome, cajoling the townsfolk into raising money for the church-to-be, championing the cashless Indians, weaving his Bible quotation into a subtle warning to his lurking nemesis - sheer & shimmering cinematic brilliance.
Kudos, RD, kudos indeed!
An apology of sorts, to a certain Mr. Dix -
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moira finnie
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Klon, I'm so glad that you can now appreciate the headlong way that Dix threw himself into the role of Yancey Cravat!
Yes, it's totally preposterous, but what a great character! Yancey is a small boy's idea of a hero, and somehow it works.
Richard Dix is so old-fashioned, I just love the ol' hambone! I always think to myself when I see him, well, this must've been what it was like to see a 19th century leading man, sort of like catching the wayback machine to see James O'Neill in "The Count of Monte Cristo" in a provincial theatre in the boonies. Dix had a larger than life quality and that big block head of his to match his style. He played such a fascinating range of leading men too as he went from marvelous silent roles in movies such as Souls for Sale (1923) to the bravado role in Cimarron (1931) to the Whistler series to Ghost Ship (1945). The guy was simply one of my favorite recent discoveries, (along with Richard Barthelmess) thanks to TCM. Have you seen Ace of Aces (1933), Klondike? I wrote about it a week or so ago on the Blog in the article about John Monk Saunders. Dix is wonderfully dramatic and over the top, but somehow effective in the role as a pacifist sculptor driven to become a warrior in WWI, and finding he liked it!
I love the way he looks at Irene Dunne in Cimarron as though he's debating whether or not he should kiss her or slug her to rouse her out of being such a bigoted stick in the mud throughout this movie. I must admit that the first time I saw this movie about a year ago, I simply watched it to enjoy seeing Edna May Oliver, but Mr. D. won me over in that great scene when he gets into a shootout with his old buddy.
There's an appreciation from Richard Harland Smith here of Richard Dix as the recurring lead in the Whistler series, an interesting low budget number that allowed Dix to play heroes and villains and several shades between. This article was just posted on the TCM blog this afternoon. Btw, here's a site that I just came across devoted to all things Dix. Enjoy:
http://www.richarddix.org/
Yes, it's totally preposterous, but what a great character! Yancey is a small boy's idea of a hero, and somehow it works.
Richard Dix is so old-fashioned, I just love the ol' hambone! I always think to myself when I see him, well, this must've been what it was like to see a 19th century leading man, sort of like catching the wayback machine to see James O'Neill in "The Count of Monte Cristo" in a provincial theatre in the boonies. Dix had a larger than life quality and that big block head of his to match his style. He played such a fascinating range of leading men too as he went from marvelous silent roles in movies such as Souls for Sale (1923) to the bravado role in Cimarron (1931) to the Whistler series to Ghost Ship (1945). The guy was simply one of my favorite recent discoveries, (along with Richard Barthelmess) thanks to TCM. Have you seen Ace of Aces (1933), Klondike? I wrote about it a week or so ago on the Blog in the article about John Monk Saunders. Dix is wonderfully dramatic and over the top, but somehow effective in the role as a pacifist sculptor driven to become a warrior in WWI, and finding he liked it!
I love the way he looks at Irene Dunne in Cimarron as though he's debating whether or not he should kiss her or slug her to rouse her out of being such a bigoted stick in the mud throughout this movie. I must admit that the first time I saw this movie about a year ago, I simply watched it to enjoy seeing Edna May Oliver, but Mr. D. won me over in that great scene when he gets into a shootout with his old buddy.
There's an appreciation from Richard Harland Smith here of Richard Dix as the recurring lead in the Whistler series, an interesting low budget number that allowed Dix to play heroes and villains and several shades between. This article was just posted on the TCM blog this afternoon. Btw, here's a site that I just came across devoted to all things Dix. Enjoy:
http://www.richarddix.org/
Oh, some great stuff! Honestly, I've never appreciated him as anything more than a punchline to a BLAZING SADDLES joke, but I've been collecting the few DVDs of his, and while I didn't really care for The Whstler films, I'd buy every DVD they put out just because they engineered a series utliizing an actor but only the stories were changed to protect the... well, never mind. It's an interesting way to do it, let's say.
Every time I see him and Chester Morris, I can't help but wish someone had thrown them together with George Reeves to have a 3-Brothers story - the guys have such similar faces.
Every time I see him and Chester Morris, I can't help but wish someone had thrown them together with George Reeves to have a 3-Brothers story - the guys have such similar faces.
I started liking Dix after watching "Stingaree" and "The Ghost Ship".
I taped "Cimarron" hopefully I'll have time tonight to watch it.
Ollie, not a bad idea about a brothers film. But if they did it today I would have to say Matthew Perry (Chandler) on Friends looks like Chester Morris' off-spring. They could pass as brothers.
Bill (vallo)
I taped "Cimarron" hopefully I'll have time tonight to watch it.
Ollie, not a bad idea about a brothers film. But if they did it today I would have to say Matthew Perry (Chandler) on Friends looks like Chester Morris' off-spring. They could pass as brothers.
Bill (vallo)
"We're all forgotten sooner or later. But not films. That's all the memorial we should need or hope for."
-Burt Lancaster
-Burt Lancaster
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moira finnie
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Richard Dix Alert!
Richard Dix appears in a very obscure British film, Transatlantic Tunnel(1935) this evening, Mar. 26th on TCM at 8pm ET. I've seen a preview of this one, complete with Mr. Dix torn between his family and his engineering career, and communicating with wife Madge Evans via two way television as he strives to build that dreamed of tunnel between our pals, the Brits, and the U.S. of A. How bad can this be, with George Arliss (he was still alive??) and Walter (occasionally a hambone) Huston in "special appearances" in this movie?
The film seems to have lots of amusingly cheesy but highly imaginative attempts to bring the world closer together. If you check out the article linked above, it will be revealed that many scientists were seriously considering such a tunnel, including Robert Goddard, one of the fathers of rocket science. Of course, compared to the William Cameron Menzies English mega-production of H.G. Wells' Things to Come, made the following year, Transatlantic Tunnel probably seemed to be small potatoes, yet I'll probably enjoy it just for another chance to see our man Dix strutting his happily old-fashioned style before the cameras once again.
In addition to Dix & Evans, this film, as well as the wonderful Most Dangerous Game (1932) (w/ Joel McCrea & Fay Wray) at 9:45pm and the original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) all feature Leslie Banks, a dramatically flamboyant British actor who appeared in relatively few films and is almost entirely forgotten today.
Please note that the above poster maintains that this production is an "eight star production". Is that like turning the volume up to 11 in This is Spinal Tap?
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klondike
Transatlantic Tunnel is actually quite good, combining at it does that multi-decade/generational family drama hokum ( a la Things To Come, & Cimarron) with some highly amusing pro-Anglia fraternal propaganda (US-UK), and also some pretty spiffy suboceanic construction scenes, some of which border on being visually thrilling!
Also helping to keep this midi-opus' blood flowing is the performance of my old buddy Mr. Dix, who was far enough along in his career here to have had some of that post-silent "starch" rinsed out of him by some of those new wave directors!
Of particular interest to modern viewers should be the scene of the British PM addressing the Congress on the "dire need" for protective unity between the US & the UK, which only a transatlantic tunnel could provide; how eerily this foreshadows Tony Blair's visit to W in the wake of 9/11, and his demonstrative urgings for America & Great Britain to "act in concert for the security of the enitre world" . . !
Also helping to keep this midi-opus' blood flowing is the performance of my old buddy Mr. Dix, who was far enough along in his career here to have had some of that post-silent "starch" rinsed out of him by some of those new wave directors!
Of particular interest to modern viewers should be the scene of the British PM addressing the Congress on the "dire need" for protective unity between the US & the UK, which only a transatlantic tunnel could provide; how eerily this foreshadows Tony Blair's visit to W in the wake of 9/11, and his demonstrative urgings for America & Great Britain to "act in concert for the security of the enitre world" . . !
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moira finnie
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Now I really want to see this one. Glad to hear that the special effects are not as cheesy as they looked in the extended preview that I came across on youtube some time back.Mr. Dix, who was far enough along in his career here to have had some of that post-silent "starch" rinsed out of him by some of those new wave directors!