Safe in Hell (1931)

☆ ☆ ☆

Safe in Hell (1931) – W.  Wellman

Pre-Code (i.e., before censorship and enforced happy endings) Hollywood feature by William Wellman and starring Dorothy Mackaill (who is in every virtually scene).  She is a call girl (the only way she can make a living, she claims, and the woeful status of women might support it) who accidentally kills her former pimp.  When her true love, a sailor, returns just at that moment, he loyally helpls her to escape to a Caribbean isle with no extradition laws to the US.  She promises to be faithful and, despite the fact that alcohol is not banned, not to party either.  As you would expect, her new land is filled with dissipated criminals who are sex-starved for a white woman (the film is as racist as it is sexist, although the two black characters, who run the hotel, are not caricatured fortunately).  Eventually gives in but still keeps her chastity awaiting the return of her sailor; instead her pimp arrives seemingly back from the dead (but of course he was never really killed, just using the opportunity to score some insurance money).  But, lo and behold, when he makes a move on Gilda this time, she kills him for good.  The plot goes on – will she get the death penalty or not? And there are a few more twists and a fully downbeat conclusion (after only 73 minutes).  At the end, I thought, well that wasn’t much -- but somehow, over night, it haunted me a bit.  Mackaill is a charismatic figure and she evokes the desperation of her plight and the psychological issues (faithfulness vs. hedonism in the face of a cruel unjust world) pretty well. Director Wellman is better known for The Public Enemy (1931) and A Star is Born (1937).