Stubs - The Sin of Nora Moran

The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) Starring Zita Johann, Alan Dinehart, Paul Cavanagh, Claire DuBrey, John Miljan. Directed by Phil Goldstone. Screenplay by Frances Hyland. Based on a play by Willis Maxwell Goodhue (production undetermined). Produced by Phil Goldstone Run time: 62 min. USA. Black and White Mystery, Pre-code, Proto-noir

You don’t hear the term “narratage” much anymore. It was a word coined by the Fox Films Publicity Department to describe the story-telling technique utilized in The Power and the Glory (1933) starring Spencer Tracy and Colleen Moore, written by Preston Sturges, his first screenplay, and directed by William K. Howard. The film, told through flashbacks which were narrated, was cited by Pauline Kael in her essay "Raising Kane", as a prototype for the narrative structure of Citizen Kane (1941). It would also be a technique used in film noir.

It is also a technique used in The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) from Majestic studios, a poverty-row production company. The film which began as The Woman in the Chair went into production in June 1933 at the old Mack Sennett Studios before The Power and The Glory was released so it’s hard to know how much influence that film had on this one. However, the film is hyped for its similar story-telling and pointed by some as an influence on Orson Welles and the others involved with how Citizen Kane is told as a story, with multiple narrators. Sin is also noted for the use of flashbacks that seem to know what will happen in the future and flash forwards that come off as dreams.

The wife of the governor, Edith Crawford (Claire DuBrey) comes to see her brother John Grant (Alan Dinehart) 

The film opens on a late night when Edith Crawford (Claire DuBrey) comes to see her brother John Grant (Alan Dinehart), who happens to be the District Attorney. We learn that she is there about letters she’s found in her husband’s safe, who happens to have been the Governor of the state, Dick Crawford (Paul Cavanagh).

The love letters are not explicit but they do tell of a long-term affair he had been having with another woman. She learns that her brother was aware of the affair and tried to keep it from her. He advises her to burn the letters but she doesn’t want to. Since the letters are not signed, she wants to know who the affair was with.

This is something that George can help her with. In his own safe, George has a press clipping about Nora Moran, who was the first woman to die in the electric chair in twenty years and tells Nora's story.

In the past, as preparations are being made for her execution, the twenty-one-year-old Nora has a chance for a reprieve if she tells the reason she committed the murder with which she is charged. To quiet the distressed girl, she is given an opiate. It is under the influence of the drug that Nora remembers her life as a child.

Nora as a child (Cora Sue Collins) with Father Ryan (Henry B. Walthall).

We see Nora as a child (Cora Sue Collins) and that she adopted by a nice Irish couple who seem to love her very much from the moment they first see her. Years later, when Nora is a teenager, her parents die when their automobile crashes over a cliff.

Nora goes to see Father Ryan.

Nora goes to see Father Ryan (Henry B. Walthall), who had overseen the adoption, to ask if she can take what’s left of their estate, after settling the debts, to try to make it as a dancer. The amount, $300, is just enough to get started. After hard studies, Nora tries to seek fame and fortune but finds dancing jobs scarce.

While she's working as the assistant to lion tamer Paulino (John Miljan) he rapes Nora.

In desperation, she takes a job in a circus working as the lovely assistant for Paulino (John Miljan), who is a lion wrestler. She seems happy with the job until, one night, Paulino enters her cabin on the train and rapes her.

Under an opiate's influence, Nora relives a conversation with Mrs. Watt (Sarah Padden).

Still under the opiate's influence, Nora relives events from her past and questions whether it ultimately was a good thing that she left the circus. She has a conversation with Mrs. Watt (Sarah Padden), the woman who gave her the $100 so she could leave. In the conversation, Mrs. Watt seems to know that the $100 will ultimately lead to Nora’s current predicament and does want to give her the money, but ultimately does.

She remembers that later, as a dancing girl, she met Crawford, danced with him, spent a week of romance with him and received a ring from him, though not an engagement ring.

Edith interrupts John's story and angrily states that while Crawford and Nora were enjoying their romance, she was out slaving for her husband’s election. John then rebukes his sister, reminding her that she wanted Dick because of social ambition, and he admits that the reason he groomed Dick for the governorship was to further his own political power.

John says that because he was afraid of a possible scandal, he investigated Nora and learned that Dick set her up in a house across the state line, where they would see each other Mondays and Fridays.

In the past, we see Dick and Nora are together. She wishes the President could make the week be only Mondays and Fridays so they could be together all the time. She seems to be transfixed when she hears a train whistle, knowing the circus she had worked for was now in town. John rings Nora's bell, and knowing what will happen in the future, she contemplates not answering. But with a touch of fatalism realizes that she must go ahead and answer the door.

John at first says that the scandal has hit the press, but then relents when Dick doesn’t react the way he wants. John then threatens to break the story of the scandal himself. That’s when Nora learns Dick is married and running for governor. To give Dick the wrong opinion of her, so that he will break up with her, Nora falsely confesses to relationships with many men. Dick leaves in disgust.

Alone with John, Nora, knowing what is about to happen, confesses that she is terrified of going through the murder again, and John blames himself for not leaving soon enough.

In prison, Nora, nearly insane from her memories and the effect of the drug, pleads that she not be allowed to go back to sleep.

John continues the story to Edith and says that Dick, now governor, refused to grant Nora a stay.

On the night of the murder, John offers whatever she wants within reason, but Nora turns him down and is resolved to leave town on the next train. John tells her that he’ll stay at the hotel for the night in case she changes her mind.

Nora shows John the dead body of Paulino.

That night, she telephones John and pleads for his help. When he arrives at her house, she shows him the body of Paulino, who, she says, was in town with the Circus. He knew of the affair with Dick and when he threatened to blackmail him, Nora killed Paulino with a whip.

Being a district attorney, John’s first inclination is to call the police. But when Nora convinces him of the scandal it will cause and lose Dick the election, he rethinks his position. Together, they plan to make it appear that Paulino died in a drunken fall from the circus train. John drives her to the scene and, when he thinks it’s set, leaves. But Nora is apprehended.

John, who has returned home after the murder, is roused from bed by a call from his office. The murder on the train has been discovered in his jurisdiction and he is called in to handle the prosecution. John explains to Edith that Nora refused a lawyer, even though he could have gotten her off.

The governor denies granting Nora a reprieve.

The night of Nora's execution, Dick denies her reprieve and remembers, returning to Nora's story, the night of the crime and finding Paulino there. After Paulino threatens to blackmail him, the two men struggle. Paulino is choking Dick with the intent to kill him when Dick reaches for Paulino’s whip and strikes him with the handle.

Dick  (Paul Cavanagh) and Paulino get into a fight which leads to Paulino's death.

Realizing that Paulino is dead, Nora convinces Dick to leave so that their happiness together will not be tainted by scandal.

Dick talks with Nora’s apparition.

As the hour of her execution draws near, Dick talks with Nora’s apparition. She says that there is nothing to fear in death and she is dying for the good things he will do. Although she argues against a pardon, Dick confesses that he killed Paulino and tries to pardon her, but his telephone line is dead as the switchboard has shut down for the night. As Nora's smiling vision disappears, he realizes that she is dead.

Dick writes a letter to John and shoots himself.

Hearing her voice repeat that there is nothing to fear in death, Dick writes a letter to John and shoots himself. After John asks Edith whether the story will end or begin there, she gives him Nora's letters, which he burns.

The film opened on December 13, 1933, with a movie poster by Alberto Vargas, a Peruvian artist who would eventually be known for his pin-up paintings of scantily clad women known as Vargas Girls. One of his earliest paintings was of then-Ziegfeld Follie dancer Olive Thomas, who was also Florenz’s lover and would one day become an early famous silent film actress. His poster for The Sin of Nora Moran, considered by some to be the greatest poster ever made, features a near-naked woman in a pose of desperation. The woman bears no resemblance to Zita Johann, the star of the film, but the poster alone may make you want to see the film.

Despite the film’s creative use of time and editing, as Mordaunt Hall, the film critic for The New York Times, points out in his review, when comparing it to The Power and the Glory, “The current offering, however, besides having little in the way of entertainment, lacks the clarity, the efficient acting and the good writing of the Jesse Lasky production.”

You don’t have to have seen The Power and the Glory to know that’s true. While I give the film credit for being creative with editing and multiple narrators, the story and the acting both fall flat without too much thought. And the plot with its time travel, so to speak, gets to be pretty convoluted and as Hall points out in his review, is not all that entertaining.

There is no hero in this story, just melodrama. The fact that Nora is so willing to give her life for something she didn’t do is almost comical if it didn’t seem so misguided on the face of it. This is not a role model for people to follow. And the fact Dick doesn’t grant her at least a reprieve is beyond selfish. He would let her die for a crime he committed rather than take political damage for saving her life. And his grand gesture in the film is the coward’s way out, suicide. There is no character in the film that is someone you can relate to, as they are all either corrupt or downright stupid.

Some of the scenes don’t necessarily play as intended. In particular, the scene when Dick is talking to an apparition of Nora, which I know is supposed to be substantial, comes off as rather silly. Not only is it Dick talking to a floating head but it is a stupid telephone call he pretends to make and then telling Nora that at least he tried. It comes off as grown kids playing pretend when there is life and death in the balance. Talk about ineffectual leadership, Dick Crawford is the poster child.

I’m also not sure what Paulino’s relationship with Nora is all about. He rapes her and she escapes but he somehow knows how to get a hold of her as well as her secret relationship. I know we need that for the plot to work, but it feels artificial to me.

Zita Johann

None of the acting is really great. Zita Johann hadn’t really developed much as an actress since being the eye-candy in The Mummy (1932). She would only make a handful of films after this one, with a 52-year span between her next one, Grand Canary (1934), and Raiders of the Living Dead (1986), a horror film in which she plays a librarian. In between, she had quit films to return to the theater where she worked with John Houseman, her husband from 1929 to 1933, and Orson Welles.

John Miljan

John Miljan, who plays Paulino, has a much longer resume as a film actor, having worked from silent films through until The Lone Ranger and The Lost City of Gold (1958). He often plays the smooth-talking villain in Hollywood films, including Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931). His role here, though small and crucial, doesn’t really give him much of a chance to do much of anything else as he is once again the villain of the piece.

Alan Dinehart as District Attorney John Grant doesn’t really get to do much, either. As the prime narrator, he’s at best okay. His expression never seems to change throughout the film, so he’s sort of a stiff one-dimensional character that is supposed to tie the film together.

Likewise, Paul Cavanagh doesn’t really get to distinguish himself as Governor Dick Crawford. For someone who appeared in over 100 films, there isn’t really much for the English-born actor to do here either.

I had heard such good things about The Sins of Nora Moran that I hate to tell you that you don’t need to see this film. It may have influenced Citizen Kane, but probably not as much as The Power and The Glory. If you’re taken in by the movie poster, then you will no doubt be disappointed, as the film is not as exciting as the Vargas painting nor as entertaining.