No Greater Sin (1941) User Reviews

Film was condemned by the Legion of Decency back in 1941

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 2 May 2012]

***SPOILERS*** Hard hitting educational drama about the scourge of syphilis that ravaged the country back in the early 1940's and what was done to stop it. Dr.Ed Cavanaugh gets appointed by the State Broad of Health to find out what's causing scores of men in a local bustling industrial town that's vital, in manufacturing combat planes and bombers, for the war effort as well as US servicemen from a nearby military base to come down with the disease.

The story centers around lovebirds local girl Betty James and her boyfriend factory worker Bill Thorne who plans to soon get married. But Bill has a deep dark secret that he's keeping from Betty about him having spent time with hookers after work at the notorious Owls Nest Bar outside of town. Bill is afraid that he contracted syphilis and will infect Betty with it after they get married. As it turned out Bill by getting tested did indeed contract the disease and sadly has to calls the marriage plans off not telling Betty the real reason for his decision!

As Dr.Cavanaugh finds out that the Owls Nest is run by gangster Nick Scaturo who's shipping hookers from all over the state to work there. It's now a race against time for Dr. Cavanaugh to get the place closed down before more innocent men as well as women, like Betty, end up getting infected with the disease! While all this is going on a desperate Bill Thorne seeks help for his illness and his marriage to Betty by going to this quack Doctor Henry Hobson who claims he can cure Bill of his syphilis in less then three months for a cool $500.00: Bill's entire life savings! This leads up to be a double tragedy for with Bill on him feeling that he's cured from the disease marring Betty and getting her pregnant as well as giving the innocent and unsuspecting girl syphilis as well!

***SPOILERS**** Things go from bad to much worse for Bill and Betty with an angry Bill now good and drunk goes to see the quack Doctor Hobson at his office and during a heated exchange with him, with Hobson pulling a gun on him, bops Hobson over the head with a beer bottle killing him. Now facing life behind bars or even the death penalty Bill is resigned to his fate not bothering to even try to defend himself in a court of law. It's local D.A Benton who in the end gets Bill off the hook by proving what he did in killing Hobson was in self defense as well as the late Dr.Hobson practicing medicine without a license. Now with all the evidence he needs in Bill contracting syphilis from one of Scaturo's hookers, and giving it to his wife Betty, Dr.Cavanaugh has the police raid the Owls Nest and finally put it and Scaturo out of business for good! But not after scores of man and women in and around town ended up getting infected with the disease by patronizing the place!

P.S The happy ending to all this is that with proper modern medical care and treatment both Bill & Betty, as well as their baby, were restored back to health. But heaven only knows how many of those infected with the disease who due to being kept in the dark, by the local as well as national media, and afraid of the social stigma that it syphilis represents, like being infected with leprosy, ended up dead or mentally damaged because of not trying, like Bill & Betty, to seek help.

No greater Sin is a film that brings into the open the scourge of Syphilis!

[czar-10 · 1 November 2000]

No greater Sin is a film about the scourge of Syphilis. Although a regular run of the mill hygiene film, it was marketed as a exploitation film. No Greater Sin has all the trademarks of a regular hygiene film, the do's and dont's with lots of melodrama added in. The film takes place somewhere in a small community in the USA, nearby there is a army base. The films warns it's viewers about the dangers of diseased soldiers. Although made in 1941, a year when sex hygiene films were getting greater approval from the MPPDA, this one was not granted a seal. Too watch it now, one wonders why??

Fair to poor production values and some dangerous misinformation.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 20 May 2010]

"No Greater Sin" is a fictionalized film about a campaign in an unnamed city to halt the spread of syphilis. There are two parallel stories in the film--the work of the health commissioner to educate and alert the public as well as one specific case where a man is diagnosed--only to be treated by a quack and to suffer the dreaded consequences.

This is a very low budget exploitation film all about the scourge of syphilis. Because the budget was so low, much of the acting is pretty poor--though somehow the folks making this film were able to get Leon Ames in the lead. Ames would become a familiar face in films in the years following "No Greater Sin", though here he is still a struggling actor. Obviously if he had been a premier actor at that time, he never would have done a VD film like this.

Unfortunately, while the production values are only fair, the information in the film is occasionally suspect as well. While it purports of dispense information about the disease, the movie gets some of its facts wrong as well as dances around the subject--possibly because most audiences of the day would have been unwilling to see an accurate and blunt discussion of sexually transmitted diseases. For example, at one point the doctor (Ames) tells people that you can catch syphilis from a drinking glass--and they never really say it comes from sex! And, although the film says that it is important that syphilis is dealt with openly and honestly, they often avoid any meaningful discussion of the problem. On the plus side, however, they do use the dreaded p-word ('prostitute')--a bit of a surprise--though how prostitutes are related to syphilis is anyone's guess if they are relying on the film to explain this! Heaven help someone if this film is their only form of sex education!! By the way, although this isn't a very good film, it's not bad enough or shrill enough to make it funny or a cult movie. While there are a lot of unintentionally funny exploitation films, this isn't one of them.

Part public information film, part melodrama

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 4 December 2018]

NO GREATER SIN is one of the more overwrought 'sensation' films out there. Part public information film, explaining the dangers of syphilis, part heated melodrama, this is ridiculous all the way. It was made on a tiny budget and features a talky script and virtually no action or incident at all. Officials in a small town are alarmed by an outbreak of venereal disease among the town's teenage population, and strive to control it. The subject matter was once controversial, but seen today this is laughable at best.

Plus...Claudia Drake sings to Arthur Housman.

[horn-5 · 6 December 2005]

As another person has commented, "No Greater Sin" was not in the usual "exploitation" vein and, was made with the intention of being shown in churches and to PTA groups, but was sold to theatres as an exploitation film. It is not written nor played as the typical pot-boiling exploitation film, or not, at least, by those who can look at it relative to the period of American history in which it was made, and not as some kind of antique camp. Leon Ames, Claudia Drake and Adele Pearce are especially good, as is the always good and always-over-looked Luana Walters. Players such as oily, thin and dangerous Ralf Harolde; and oily, fat and really dangerous Frank Jacquet; and oily, fat and chamber-of-commerce dumb Henry Roquemore play the characters they mostly always played and, as usual, played them well. A little bit of sincere Bud McTaggart (billed here as George McTaggart), as the man who gets a dose, thinks he is cured, gets married and finds out he isn't, gets tiresome real quick like---like about his third line in his first scene, and he has many lines in many scenes.

And the film has a great sight gag when drunk Arthur Housman stumbles out of the rest room and flashes his "press" credential at the policeman. It takes one creative drunk to make a credential out of the handle off of a toilet bowl. It most likely had been done before but I missed it if so.