Safe in Hell

I caught this film on TCM in Dec. of 2007. It was being shown as part of their William Wellman festival. I had not heard of it before, and didn't recognize any of the cast names. The story is a bout a woman accused of a murder in New Orleans, who is helped by her sailor boyfriend to an island in the Caribbean. This is a refuge for scoundrels and criminals. Romantically, the sailor marries her in a very private ceremony, and then he leaves her behind while he sails away for work. Clearly, the focus is on her, since he has very little screen time. The bulk of the film is the long time she has to wait for his return, fending of the lecherous advances of the motley criminals and a corrupt lawman. The ending was dark and surprisingly odd for any Hollywood film. And I was so surprised that I need to see it again, just to make sure I didn't imagine it. It is a somewhat slow film, but it is also intriguing in ways that only pre- code features can be. It seemed even modern in it's dark sensibilities. Also, the lead role, portrayed by Dorothy MacKaill, is a fascinating mix of spunky and trashy, showing more depth and complexity than one might expect from a standard H'wood feature. I'll be looking for her in other films. Definitely a noir predecessor. The black major-domo and the woman running the bar are terrific, too.

In looking at the list of movies Nina Mae McKinney appeared in on this site, it mentioned that her part in this movie-as well as that of fellow African-American player Clarence Muse-had them speaking normal English as opposed to the stereotypical dialect associated with their race in films during this period. They do indeed sound normal-actually Muse seemed British when he spoke-and refreshingly non-stereotypical. One other player of their race has a silent role as a guard-Noble Johnson who would two years later appear in a more-iconic movie called King Kong. The story itself, about a New Orleans prostitute who gets smuggled to an uncharted island after killing the man responsible for her situation, was quite compelling especially when she encounters both Nina and Clarence there as possibly the only people who seemed concerned for her well-being. There are some white counterparts who are like them but many of them have sordid pasts like that of that prostitute. In summary, I'll just say Safe in Hell was quite a compelling pre-Code drama. P.S. The song Ms. McKinney performs here-"When It's Sleepytime Down South"-was co-written by Muse.

Plot-- A prostitute thinks she killed her cunning corrupter and flees to a Caribbean island to escape extradition, but not before marrying her departing sailor true love. Trouble is the island's full of lecherous men bent on nailing her, the island's only white woman. So should she risk staying or risk leaving.

That opening scene's a grabber that fairly shouts 'prostitute'. If it didn't help bring down Production Code censorship (1934), I don't know what would. Except for the goofy antics of the unshaven oglers, this 1931 cheapo almost amounts to a sleeper. Actress Mackail delivers the tough gal with soul, in spades. Too bad she's so obscure, her acting career mainly in silents. Here, she fends off the many lecherous men in convincing Joan Blondell style. And catch Charles Middleton in a surprisingly nuanced role; that is, a few years before his Ming The Merciless menaced Flash Gordon's serial universe. The movie's also distinguished by a surprise ending. But keep in mind that the subtext is about crime and redemption, along with true love. These themes are interwoven in subtle fashion such that the conclusion may prompt some thought.

Anyway, it's one of legendary director Wellman's early talkies, which in characteristic fashion he doesn't sentimentalize. And, oh yes, maybe my favorite scene is when the true lovers conduct their spooning through a fortunate crack in a shipping crate. Good thing she could get out before the cranes came. Note too, that the lovers' marriage is conducted without benefit of presiding cleric or official marriage certificate. Yet the couple treat their enduring love as all the ceremony they need. Thus church and government are bypassed as unnecessary despite long tradition and heavy legalisms. No wonder the screenplay is pre-Code. All in all, the 70-minutes is definitely meaningful and worth thinking about. So catch up with it despite the long ago era.

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.

I've wanted to see Safe in Hell for a long time, thinking it was some kind of archetypal pre-Code experience, and it's tawdry enough but fatally slow. Dorothy Mackaill plays a woman who was left behind by her sailor boyfriend, turned to prostitution, and ends up killing a john she apparently had a bad experience with before the movie started. That's the first ten minutes or so, and it's pretty good. Then the sailor boyfriend, who gets over the prostitution and murder stuff pretty quickly, helps her escape and, making the same mistake with his not very strong-willed girlfriend a second time, plops her alone on a miserable little island with a group of exiled lowlifes who sit in rattan chairs all day ogling her.

This proves, ultimately if not convincingly, irresistible, and once she falls the second time, it's a short walk from there to being executed for a crime she didn't commit, and trying hard to keep the secret of her sorry end from her sailor boyfriend, who really needs to find a nice gal he can leave alone somewhere for five minutes without her killing somebody, regardless of the circumstances.

I think the island stuff was originally a play, in the far-east-sleaze mode of Kongo, Shanghai Gesture, etc., and if so I think there must have been more action in it than made it to the screen, because there's a lot of suggestion that something's going to happen, but not much actually does. Mackaill is all right, she's certainly attractive and doesn't object to a pre-Code wardrobe, but she doesn't make as strong an impression as, say, Barbara Stanwyck, who was evidently Wellman's first choice.

The strongest impression is made by Nina Mae McKinney and Clarence Muse as the hotel proprietors, who exude a warmth and conviviality in their scenes that seems to have come from a different movie (and suggests that the Hell of the island was brought there by its white visitors, not intrinsic to the place). McKinney, the wonderful star of the very early sound Hallelujah!, even gets to sing a song, in the only on-screen appearance of her MGM contract (loaned out to Warners). It makes you a wish for a very different movie about her character, rather than Mackaill's.