The Sin of Nora Moran

press release: USA | 1933 | DCP | 65 min.

Director: Phil Goldstone; Cast: Zita Johann, John Miljan, Alan Dinehart

The standard pre-Code plot of a victimized woman (The Mummy’s Johann, as Nora) who descends into a life of degradation is elevated through a series of flashbacks, flash-forwards and flashbacks-within-flashbacks. Filmed on an ultra-low budget, The Sin of Nora Moran’s storytelling style is so complex that the narrative assumes a free-form, dream-like quality that enhances rather than detracts from it. Haunting, hallucinatory, artistic, exploitive -- this may be the best B-film of the 1930s. Preceded by Hearst Metrotone News, Vol. 4, No. 269 (1933, 9 min.) and Ub Iwerks’ Balloon Land (1935, 7 min.).

All Cinematheque screenings are free and open to the public.

Down and Dirty in Gower Gulch: Poverty Row Films Preserved by UCLA

During the 1930s and 1940s, while the major studios controlled first run theatres, numerous independent studios produced what were called “B-Films,” whether westerns, crime dramas, or horror. Low budget studio independents, like Monogram, Producers Releasing Corporation, Reliance, Republic, and Tiffany, were housed in rental studios off Gower Street in Los Angeles, often referred to as “Gower Gulch.” So-called “Poverty Row” pictures were usually made for $100,000 or less, and shot on five to ten day shooting schedules. Despite their exceedingly low budgets, resulting in often cheesy sets and under par acting, the poverty row studios had a surprising degree of freedom to tackle controversial subject matter, whether venereal disease, the psychology of kidnap victims or rampant quackery in the medical profession. The lack of budget also gave creative film directors, like Edgar G. Ulmer and Lowell Sherman, the opportunity to turn minimal resources into expressive devices. UCLA Film & Television Archive has moved increasingly towards preserving independent and poverty row titles, many of which are no longer copyrighted, because their producers never registered the films to begin with or lost rights because they went bankrupt. These “orphan films” visualize many of the repressed or forbidden themes that preoccupy the nether regions of the American psyche. Get ready for a wild ride!  (Jan-Christopher Horak, Director, UCLA Film & Television Archive).