The Sin of Nora Moran – 1933, Phil Goldstone

by Allan Fish

(USA 1933 65m) DVD1

Let me die because it’s my destiny to die

p  Phil Goldstone  d  Phil Goldstone  w  W.Maxwell Goodhue, Frances Hyland  ph  Ira H.Morgan  ed  Otis Garrett  m  Heinz Roemheld 

Zita Johann (Nora Moran), John Miljan (Paulino), Alan Dinehart (D.A. John Grant), Paul Cavanagh (Governor Bill Crawford), Henry B.Walthall (Father Ryan), Claire du Brey (Edith Crawford), Sarah Padden (Mrs Watts), Ann Brody (matron), Otis Harlan (Mr Moran), Aggie Herring (Mrs Moran),

In a poll The Sin of Nora Moran’s poster was rated the no 1 poster of all-time, but if you saw a list of the top 100 films in that poll, chances are it would be the only one you’d not recognise.  One look at the poster is all you need.  On it, a young woman, with seemingly curly strawberry blonde hair is sitting semi-upright on the floor, one leg pulled back so her head rests on her knee, the other flat on the ground but pulled back into a kneeling stance.  Her arms are brought round into a sort of protective position, one over the back of the head, the other resting on her lower leg.  We can’t see her face, but it’s what we can nearly see that hypnotises us.  Through what seems a flimsy, translucent material, we see her breast almost popping out of her nightdress.  It’s all very pre-code, very racy, and designed to pull in the punters, but forgive me when I say it has absolutely no bearing on the melodrama that follows.  Even the title promises something we don’t actually get.

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Pinocchio (No. 67)

by Brandie Ashe

Three years after Walt Disney produced the first full-length animated feature film, 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, RKO released the follow-up to that mega-hit, Pinocchio. Originally intended to be Disney’s third film, its production was accelerated when the studio ran into trouble with the animation of Bambi (that film was eventually completed and released in 1942).

The story of Pinocchio is familiar even to those who have never seen the movie—a lonely wordworker, Geppetto, crafts a wooden boy and wishes upon a star that the boy could be real. His wish is granted by the benevolent Blue Fairy, but Geppetto’s naive new “son” is easily led astray by conniving tricksters, getting into all kinds of trouble that even his “conscience,” in the guise of one Jiminy Cricket, cannot prevent: he joins a marionette show run by a domineering, maniacal old puppeteer; he becomes dissolute and nearly finds himself turned into a donkey; and he is swallowed by a mean, gigantic whale. And on top of all that, Pinocchio’s nose grows to gigantic proportions whenever he tells a lie. Can the pseudo-kid ever catch a break?

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