This epic film is perfectly acceptable, but I don't think of it as a western. True, a few cowboys are involved early, along with bounties, and the mistreatment of Native Americans. I think Edna Ferber was writing a period piece, from not too distant in her own past. There was just as much tension in the plot from class warfare and social climbing as there was from typical western themes. Edna Ferber seemed to focus more on character than on plot developments (which frequently tended toward melodrama), but she was writing a novel and not a treatment for a screenplay. I thoroughly enjoyed the film for what it was, not for what it should have been.
Review of Cimarron
