The Sin of Nora Moran is a little low-budget melodrama about a girl who is born into poverty, fights just to survive, gets involved with the wrong man, and pays the ultimate price for it. It was produced by Majestic Pictures, a Poverty Row studio that wouldn’t even exist within a few years. It stars Zita Johann, who is best known for her role in The Mummy with Boris Kaloff but who would quit Hollywood to return to the theater after making only eight films.
Buy The Sin of Nora Moran from MovieZyngWith its tiny budget and plot that resembles any number of other “women who get themselves into trouble” films being made at the time, The Sin of Nora Moran should have been immediately forgotten. It should have been lost to time. But a funny thing happened on the way to obscurity: someone (and it is unclear as to who) mucked about with its editing and turned it into something truly interesting.
Nora Moran (Johann) had a hard life. She grew up poor. Both parents were dead by the time she was a teenager. She took what little money they left her and took dancing lessons, hoping to land a job on Broadway as a chorus girl, or at least doing jigs in some club. But she has no luck. No one is hiring. She’ll eventually land a job at a circus, assisting a lion tamer. But when he rapes her one drunken night, she flees.
She lands a job working in a nightclub, and it is there she meets Dick Crawford (Paul Kavanagh). He’s sweet on her, and they begin an affair. She becomes a kept woman, and he keeps her far out of sight. For he is already married and running for governor.
Eventually, the lion tamer will return and wind up dead. Nora takes the rap and finds herself on death row, awaiting the electric chair.
All of this is fairly standard stuff, but the way the movie tells this tale is fascinating. It begins with District Attorney John Grant (Alan Dineheart) being interrupted by Edith Crawford (Claire Du Brey), Dick’s wife. She’s found some love letters written by Nora to Dick and wants an explanation.
As he tells Nora’s story, we flash back not to the beginning but to her lying in a prison cell on the day of her execution. She’s been given a sedative, and now she’s remembering her life story, which we see in a flashback within a flashback. Sometimes the events of her story will be so dramatic it will pull her out of the flashback, and we’ll find ourselves with her in prison again. Other times, the film will pull back to John and Edith discussing her story.
This nesting-egg strategy to the storytelling is amplified as the film also changes perspectives multiple times. It will also use wipes to darken and lighten the screen depending on whose perspective the story is being told from and how tragic the scene is.
After the murder, Nora’s confession helps shield Dick from his involvement and John Grant uses his power as District Attorney to cover up his part in it. As the film is being told from his perspective (and sometimes his perspective through Nora’s perspective), the story if shaded by both his guilt and blind ambition.
There is some wonderful use of camera movement as well. In one scene, Nora laments that she only had seven real days to be with John. The camera then moves to the girl sitting next to her, who says, “Six days,” and then to the next, who says, “Five days,” and so on until the camera lingers on the last girl, who sighs, “The week’s gone.”
None of this is on the level of Orson Welles directing Citizen Kane, but for a cheapie made by a Poverty Row studio, it is fascinating stuff. Zita Johann was a mesmerizing actor who channeled her own spirituality and mysticism into creating characters that feel otherworldly. Nora Moran seems to know her fate before she’s born. She fights for her life, but resigns herself for what’s to come.
Buy The Sin of Nora Moran from AmazonThe Sin of Nora Moran should have been forgotten nearly as quickly as it was made. Were it not for some inventive editing and a fine central performance (not to mention some incredibly evocative and racy poster art) it would have been. But here we are more than 90 years later still talking about it.
