Safe in Hell

William Wellman makes the most of pre code freedom in the dark and cynical Safe in Hell. With an on the run hooker in the lead hiding out on a rogues island with a disreputable bunch of sex starved thieves and wheeler dealers Wellman serves up ample helpings of society's underbelly with some effective and subversive pokes at society in general.

New Orleans "escort" Gilda has to blow town fast after possibly committing murder and burning down an apartment building. Her seaman lover spirits her away to an island until things cool off where she shares a fleabag hotel with some male dregs of humanity. Her lover plans to return and marry her but the local law and the hangman who also has designs on her confiscates his letters giving her the feeling she's been deserted. Keeping the boys at arms length most of the picture she is forced to shoot and kill one of the miscreants. Found innocent of murder she must nevertheless do some time on the weapons charge thus delivering her into the grimy paws of the hangman.

Nearly all the white male characters in Safe in Hell are low lifes of the first order. Criminals without conscience, lusting voyeurs they all want a piece of the action and when Gilda feels she's gotten the brush off she lowers her guard. With a telling sense of irony Wellman provocatively juxtaposes their loutishness with the films only refined respectful well spoken character, a black porter (Clarence Muse) as well as infer miscegenation with the inn keeper (Nina Mae McKinney) who dazzles the boys with a touch of Bessie Smith.

Dorothy Mackaill plays Gilda with a glamor less tragic resignation as well as most of the hard boiled molls permeating early sound poverty row films. Morgan Wallace's lascivious Mr. Bruno the hangman is convincing enough to makes Gilda's rash action that determines her fate certainly understandable as Wellman's uncompromising take leaves her little alternative.

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.

Safe In Hell is is a cross between Sadie Thompson and The Getaway, with Dorothy Mackaill in stunning form as the 'bad girl' who runs away to a remote Caribbean island to escape her past. Director William Wellman delivers another quality picture, and we get to see Nina Mae McKinney's star power on display (including one hot jazz number!). The story is silly but fans of early thirties cinema need to see this.

"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.

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.