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6.7/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.7/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. The Sin of Nora Moran remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you love weird, dusty old movies that feel like they were made by a time traveler, you need to watch The Sin of Nora Moran right now. It is absolutely worth your time tonight, especially if you dig dark, trippy pre-code melodramas. 🍿
But if you hate slow paces or old black-and-white acting styles, you will probably find it boring. For everyone else, it is a total trip.
Honestly, I went into this expecting a cheap, forgettable 1930s soap opera. Instead, I got a movie that feels like a fever dream.
The plot is simple on paper. Nora Moran (played by the amazing Zita Johann) is on death row for a murder she didn't commit.
She is protecting someone she loves. Classic melodrama stuff, right?
Except the way this movie tells the story is totally bonkers. It does not go from A to B.
Instead, it uses flashbacks inside of flashbacks. Sometimes a character is just thinking, and we see their memories overlapping on screen.
It feels very modern. Like, almost scary in how it captures how a brain actually scrambles memories when it is panicked.
Zita Johann is the main reason to watch this. You might know her from the classic horror films of the era, but here she is just... raw.
Her eyes are huge and she looks genuinely terrified in almost every scene. There is a moment where she just stares at a circus poster and it feels incredibly sad.
There is a scene near the middle where Nora is talking to her abusive adoptive brother. The actor playing him is so over the top, he belongs in a completely different movie.
But the contrast between his shouting and Zita's quiet, dead-eyed stare is just fantastic. It is like she is acting in a 1970s indie film and he is still in 1910.
Speaking of weird vibes, 1933 was a wild year for movies. Compare this to something like The Dentist, which is pure chaotic comedy, and you realize how much filmmakers were experimenting back then.
It makes you realize how safe movies became just a few years later. Once the production code got strict, stuff like this vanished.
Some of the sets look incredibly cheap. You can tell they only had about three rooms to shoot in, so they just moved the chairs around.
The lighting is super dark, though. It hides the cheapness and makes everything look like a noir film before noir was even a thing.
There is this one scene with a lion tamer that makes absolutely no sense. I think they just had the footage and wanted to use it.
It reminded me of old silent era dramas like Uncle Tom's Cabin, where they just throw everything at the wall. But here, the editing makes it feel artsy instead of cheap.
It is definitely not perfect. Some of the dialogue is super corny and people talk way too slow.
But the atmosphere is so heavy. It feels like you are trapped in a bad dream with Nora.
If you want something different than the usual old Hollywood stuff, give this one a shot. You won't forget it anytime soon.
IMDb 7.1
1927
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