Best movie ever!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Here is a decent film from Majestic Pictures from 1933. Zita Johann plays a girl in desperate circumstances who gets embroiled in a murder. The structure of this film is quite unique for it's genre. The direction by Phil Goldstone and the performances are excellent. Many offbeat touches are present and there is a decent music score, rare for a little poverty row production like this. Films like this make me appreciative of the little studios that put these out. This probably played small houses or the bottom half of a double bill. It really is well done and the brief running time (just over an hour) goes by pretty quickly. The print I saw running on YouTube was decent, with good picture and sound. The clever montages and effects really add to the enjoyment of this film.

MAJESTIC PICTURES in their short Hollywood production life 1930-35 made excellent small films using sets at other studios. This meant they could use those facilities and instead spend big on actors and crew. Without studio overheads their input concentrated on finding and using excellent A grade sets and costumes and facilities without owning them. As a result their films had an RKO or MGM look. Actors would be called to make a film at RKO and find it a Majestic title ensuring constant work on a big lot but maybe for a minor player. This allowed Majestic to get A tech and image at a bargain rate and not embarrass their desired actors. However in this film they even excelled themselves and most Hollywood majors studio style in creating a unique melancholy almost- noir nightmare of doomed love and honor... and all the emotional treachery that goes with it. Somewhere between SORRY WRONG NUMBER and DETOUR and overlapping time shift of PULP FICTION, this film THE SIN OF NORA MORAN uses those techniques and techniques of voice over, flashback and sad romance with equal parts hangman's noose, resigned fate and deceit. What a find! THE SIN OF NORA MORAN is a film school textbook of economic film making and could easily stand an upgraded remake today. Excellent! Treat yourself!. Good restored UCLA DVD too. Zita Johan in the lead part as Nora is simply exquisite and her melancholy tone throughout is most effective. Her sin? Being born.

Ex-circus performer Zita Johann (as Nora Moran) becomes a New York chorus girl. She meets up-and-coming politician Paul Cavanagh (as Dick Crawford), and they begin an affair. Since Mr. Cavanagh is married, he sets up a "love shack" for trysts with Ms. Johann. After a few months of private bliss, an accidental murder ends their love affair. District Attorney Alan Dinehart (as John Grant) is assigned to prosecute Johann. Mr. Dinehart helped Cavanagh to win a state governorship, and is the brother of his cheated-on wife. Dinehart also narrates the story. Phil Goldstone's "The Sin of Nora Moran" is a structurally interesting, but ultimately fair-to-middling movie.**** The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) Phil Goldstone ~ Zita Johann, Paul Cavanagh, Alan Dinehart

They try, but for a short film made on a shoestring it shows it.Trying to gain some mileage from the big sleeper hit of 1931, THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET, which won an Oscar for Helen Hayes, and to use the novel narrative style of THE POWER AND THE GLORY, THE SIN OF NORA MORAN has neither a major studio backing it with it's resources nor the screenplay from one of Hollywood's all time top talents (Preston Sturges). It is a curiosity today because of it's twisty "the wrong person is going to die in the chair" plot, and due to some of the performers - all of whom did better films. Zita Moran (as was mentioned in the synopsis) is sentenced to die for a murder she never committed. She does not want to hurt all the people she cared for by revealing the truth. So she does die in the end.SPOILER COMING UP.She had been having an affair with the Governor of the state, played by that underrated cultivated actor Paul Cavanagh. His performance is worth watching because he is torn by his own knowledge of her innocence and his sense of duty (somewhat comparable to "Governor" William Powell's sense of duty versus friendship for the doomed murderer Clark Gable in MANHATTAN MELODRAMA, a far more interesting and better produced film). In the end Cavanagh's tragedy is not being able to live with what has resulted from his actions and lack of them.Because of it's attempt to be far better than it is, and for Paul Cavanagh's under-appreciated career, I rank this a "6".