ellenirishellen-62962 That our heroine has to continue to fend off sleazebags who bring to mind the Metoo movement and Harvey Weinstein (that's who I immediately thought of while fighting nausea watching the gross warden/jailer of the island),not to mention some of the less contemptible denizens of the story.My favorite acting was by Jones,the lawyer played admirably by Charles Middleton.Dorothy Mackaill was excellent as the wronged woman,forced to flee NOLA due to believing she's killed the man who forced her into prostitution,Piet played by Ralf Harolde,the squirmy doctor from Night Nurse in 1930.Surprised at "Gramps" character turning out to be a killer,he seemed so mild-mannered in comparison to Vic Varconi's General Gomez,John Wray's Egan,and the nastiest character,the jailer-if I'd face hanging vs jail to provide him with benefits,I'd choose suicide,never give him the satisfaction of pawing me as he lowers the noose.

Neil Doyle DOROTHY MACKAILL is a name unknown by today's moviegoers but she was a pretty good actress judging by her work as a prostitute on the lam in SAFE IN HELL. It's the kind of tough gal role that would have suited someone like Barbara Stanwyck, but Mackaill is a pretty blonde who nails her character completely.After giving her ex-lover rough treatment and thinking he's dead after his apartment catches fire, she's advised to flee to a tropical island where there's no extradition to the United States for criminals. What she discovers is that the island is a living hell and all of its inhabitants are fugitives from the law.There's such a ring of familiarity about the whole story that I can swear it must have been remade years later, perhaps for an Ann Sheridan movie or a vehicle for Jean Harlow. I'll have to check it out, but I'm sure I've seen this whole story before in a later version.For pre-code fans, this is a "must see." All of the situations are racy enough to send the censors reeling and some of the dialog is crisp and believable in a way that most films of the '30s never achieve.About as downbeat as any film about sinners, it's directed in forthright fashion by William A. Wellman, with some decidedly unpleasant looking men cast in supporting roles as island outcasts. Worth a watch for the performances of Dorothy Mackaill and Nina Mae McKinney in the only femme roles.Only other recognizable cast member for me was IVAN SIMPSON, who had a brief scene in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD where he played the proprietor of Kent Road Tavern who admits Maid Marian so that she can inform Robin's men about his capture.

mgconlan-1 "Safe in Hell" proved to be a stunning movie in many respects, a major precursor of film noir both thematically and stylistically. Wellman and cinematographer Sid Hickox stage many of the scenes in chiaroscuro darkness, and even the opening title — in which the words "SAFE IN HELL" appear as cutouts in a black field with fire billowing forth from behind the letters — is visually stunning and sets the mood for the film instead of merely announcing what it's called. (The title and the director's name — in small print on the same card — are the only credits we see at the outset; the other credits are relegated to the end, in the fashion that's now become standard but was highly unusual in 1931.) The script requires the actors, Mackaill and Cook in particular, to make some pretty abrupt hairpin turns in emotions and motivations, but it's a testament to their skill (especially Mackaill's — Cook's is a pretty straightforward good-guy lead and his only spectacular sequence is the early one in which his loathing suddenly turns into desperate protectiveness and love when she's about to be arrested) that all the emotional turns are quite credible and she's equally believable as a bad girl and a good one. Like Charles Vidor's "Sensation Hunters", made for Monogram two years later and the closest film I could think of to the mood of this one, "Safe in Hell" manages to convey the oppressiveness of the environment and the desperation with which the heroine is faced in trying to maintain (what's left of) her virtue in the face of the economic and sexual pressures on her.It also features two remarkable characters, the Black proprietess of the hotel on Tortuga where most of the action takes place (Nina Mae McKinney, the femme fatale of "Hallelujah!" here cast as a positive character) and her assistant, Newcastle (Clarence Muse). The screenwriters wrote the lines for McKinney and Muse in phony dialect but they actually delivered them in normal English. (Score one for William Wellman for allowing them to get away with that!) McKinney also gets to warble the song "When It's Sleepy Time Down South," ostensibly to a recording — no doubt the song got in the film because her Black co-star Muse co-wrote it with Leon and Otis René! Originally released with an advisory that the film was "Not for Children" (anticipating the Hollywood rating system that would ultimately displace the Production Code), "Safe in Hell" is a great movie, a forgotten gem that deserves to be better known than it is and an example of the Hollywood studio system working on all cylinders and producing something that acknowledged the clichés and yet also defied them quite movingly. Why Warner Home Video didn't include this on the boxed set of Wellman's pre-Code films for Warners — when it's a better movie than any of the ones they DID include — is beyond me.

mukava991 Although this film directed by the versatile William Wellman is not essentially different from many other fallen women pictures of the early talkie era, it has elements that lift it out of the ordinary. For contemporary viewers it's an opportunity to see Dorothy Mackaill in a starring role. She was a beautiful and self-possessed actress whose career came and went too quickly. At times she looks so much like Marion Davies that you could easily mistake them for twins. Here she plays a prostitute fleeing the law with a young fellow who loves her. He deposits her in a hotel on a steamy Caribbean island inhabited by escaped male criminals. There is the appealing shock of seeing two African-American actors actually speaking and behaving in a dignified and even admirable manner: Nina Mae MacKinney and Clarence Muse as a hotel proprietress and porter, respectively. Muse speaks the King's English better than the blonde leading lady and comports himself in a far more civilized manner than any of the white men. MacKinney is spectacular. She holds her own no matter who she is playing against and even sings a spirited round of "Sleepy Time Down South" as she pours wine for a large table of diners. Another case of wasted talent in the old Hollywood days.