FILM RADAR: Double Bill - THE SIN OF NORA MORAN & THE POWER AND THE GLORY

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Wednesday, May 18th, 2005

Double Bill - THE SIN OF NORA MORAN & THE POWER AND THE GLORY

If you haven’t attended the Wednesday night Film Preservation series at UCLA—you MUST! It is an excellent evening and always provides great insight into the process (both creative and technical) of restoring a film. They also tend to show really rare hard to find gems which makes it all the more worthy.

This particular evening, the screened a double feature of 2 recently restored prints.

THE POWER AND THE GLORY (1933)

First up was THE POWER AND THE GLORY which is the film that launched Spencer Tracy into full blown stardom. Before the film UCLA’s Robert Gitt explained that the film was actually the forerunner of CITIZEN KANE in terms of its storytelling style. He said that the film was so influential that countless writers and directors screened it for years and considered it a great inspiration. The film was written by the great Preston Sturges and is not just good—it was GREAT! The story chronicles the rise and fall of a railroad executive named Tom Garner (Spencer Tracy) and is told through a series of flashbacks. The characters are complicated, flawed and incredibly interesting. Silent star Colleen Moore plays his long suffering wife in the film and she is excellent! She is really the heart of the film and it is because of her encouragement and strength that the Spencer Tracy character succeeds. Unfortunately he finds out that his success comes at a price. The power and status he has achieved slowly start to destroy his life and the lives of those around him.

The dialogue crackles and this film is simply electrifying. It has such a tremendous amount of energy and momentum behind it. The fact that the film is still around is something of a minor miracle. Robert Gitt explained that the original negative was destroyed in a fire and they had to call upon multiple sources to restore and preserve the film. The main and end titles had to be recreated as well as parts of the score.

Fortunately due to these efforts, the film is alive and well. I really hope this gets a DVD release. We are so spoiled living here in Los Angeles to get to see rare films like this on the big screen, but there are so many film lovers who aren’t so fortunate. This film is incredible and really deserves to be available to film lovers in every corner of the world.

THE SIN OF NORA MORAN (1933)

Based on the title alone, I was VERY interested in seeing this film. This film is told in flashbacks, flashforwards and flash backs within flashbacks. The narrative goes far off the rails, but it didn’t matter much because I was so enraptured with the film that I was willing to go along for the freefalling ride. The UCLA Program notes described this film as, “Haunting, hallucinatory, artistic, exploitive—THE SIN OF NORA MORAN may be the best B-picture of the ‘30s.“ I complete agree. This is without question the most avant garde narrative film I have ever seen. Being a low budget B-movie, it makes incredible use of stock footage! When Nora Moran is walking down the street you see this barrage of city skyscrapers, a woman’s feet walking, cigarette smoke and images of dingy nightclubs and jazz musicians. That montage alone explained so much about the gritty, seemy, yet strangely seductive world that Nora Moran was inhabiting. Zita Johann played the title role and she was really excellent. She played Nora Moran not as a heartless vixen, but with a great deal of sympathy. She was best known for co-starring with Boris Karloff in THE MUMMY, but she would only make one more film in 1934 before retiring. That is a real shame because she clearly had talent and could have had a long career.

As far as this film being a Pre-Code, well ALL the proper elements are there. The film contains rape, murder, lying, cheating, scandal, the electric chair and death row!

Yes, this film is a real pot boiler and is well worth checking out…which you CAN. It is available on DVD!

Written by Karie (site owner) on 05/18 at 12:23 AM