SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

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.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Adapted from the play "Burnt Offerings", it was originally produced under the title "The Woman in the Chair" and in the 1980s it was re-released as "Voice From the Grave". Whatever the title it was an extraordinarily strange little film using a stream of consciousness narrative (used the same year by Preston Sturges in "The Power and the Glory") and according to some critics, maybe the best independent feature of the thirties. It definitely would have confused a lot of viewers of the day but as a Majestic release it would have played on the bottom half of double bills, so it may have been a pleasant surprise or a confusing one.Edith Crawford (Claire DuBrey, who played the first Mrs. Rochester in the 1934 version of "Jane Eyre") visits her brother, a District Attorney (Alan Dinehart), determined to find out who her husband, Bill, is having an affair with. The "other woman" is Nora Moran (Zita Johann)who is about to be executed for murder. There is a very confronting scene involving preparations before an execution and then Nora's subconscious mind takes over. After a rather sad childhood, Nora finds herself working in a circus for Paulino (John Miljan), a lecherous lion tamer who rapes her. A year later Nora feels she has found happiness with Bill but Paulino comes back on the scene, hoping to try some blackmail and is killed.There is much "avant garde" film-making in this. Apart from SOC, there are flashbacks within flashbacks (similar to the 1940's movie "The Locket"), eerie appearances - Sarah Padden, as one of Nora's circus friends, suddenly materializes beside her prison bed, as does Nora, who appears to Bill (Paul Cavanaugh), to plead with him not to let her die in vain. (He is really a weak person and Nora begs him to try to be strong for her sake). There is even a bizarre fantasy sequence in which the men in her life discuss events standing around her coffin!!! It is a very strange movie!!Alan Dinehart seems to be the only actor in the movie that you can warm to. He is not particularly a "good guy" but has a dimension to his acting that the other players lack. Zita Johann a stage actress, who D.W. Griffith selected for the female lead in his film "The Struggle", had the intensity but no heart. You somehow can't imagine her as a chorus girl - Mae Clarke would have been perfect, but that is just my opinion. Cora Sue Collins was a child star who seemed to get some plum roles (until Shirley Temple came along) - she had played Greta Garbo as a child in "Queen Christina". She was top billed in a part that only lasted 60 seconds at the most. Henry B. Walthall, was also in the cast as the kindly Father Ryan, who looked after Nora as a child.Recommended.

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".

This should be an excellent weeper, but it doesn't come off. Too much of the story is told by narration and the performances are flat and, in the case of lead Zita Johann, far too frequently leaden -- as often happens with a good actor, an apparently deliberate but boring choice. The cinematography is excellent, although the 'talking heads' finale is a bizarre choice.