Kudos to Turner Classic Movies for showing the pre-code The Sin of Nora Moran, an obscure film from a poverty row studio, Majestic Pictures, starring Zita Johann and directed by Phil Goldstone, each of whom made a handful of movies. Johann plays Nora Moran, who is an orphan trying to make it as a dancer and when she is unable to find work she joins a circus, helping out in an animal act where the lion tamer Paulino (John Miljam) punches out the lions. After Moran is raped by Paulino she flees and finds a job at a nightclub, where she meets and eventually shacks up with Frank Crawford (Paul Cavanagh) until she finds out that Crawford is married, just as Paulino's circus comes into town. Crawford decides to leave Moran and then changes his mind, returning to Moran just as Paulino is attacking her. Crawford kills Paulino but Moran insists on taking the blame so as not to ruin Crawford's chances of becoming governor. Moran is convicted of murder and when she is executed, Crawford, who is now governor and could have pardoned her, commits suicide.
This ludicrous plot is directed with considerable panache by Goldstone. The story starts with Crawford's widow (Claire Du Brey) bringing a collection of unsigned love letters to the district attorney (John Grant) who tells the whole story before burning the letters. There are flashbacks, flashforwards, flashbacks within flashbacks, fantasies and dream sequences, all within a 65-minute running time, which also includes considerable stock footage of nightclubs, circuses and speeding trains. This movie, like the complex The Power and the Glory (1933, written by Preston Sturges and directed by William K. Howard), is considered by some to be an influence on the unusual structure of Citizen Kane (1941).
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