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| Donald Cook and Dorothy Mackaill in Safe in Hell (1931) |
Director: William A. Wellman
Main Cast: Dorothy Mackaill, Donald Cook, Ralf Harolde, Victor Varconi, Nina Mae McKinney, Charles Middleton, Clarence Muse
"A young Barbara Stanwyck was considered for the starring role as the exiled call-girl in this extremely frank pre production-code drama directed by William A. Wellman from a play by Houston Branch. The role eventually went to Dorothy Mackaill, an evocative British-born veteran adept at playing less than respectable women. Mackaill is Gilda Karlson, a call-girl fleeing New Orleans the supposed murder of her latest 'john', Piet Van Saal (Ralf Harolde). Old boyfriend Carl Erickson (Donald Cook) arranges for safe passage to Tortuga, a Caribbean Island without extradition laws. After 'marrying' the girl in the eyes of God but without the benefit of clergy, Carl leaves on his ship. Having successfully kept an international array of escaped crooks at bay, Gilda suddenly finds herself face-to-face with Van Saal, still very much alive and on Tortuga because an insurance scam went astray. The island's jealous executioner, Bruno (Morgan Wallace), hands the girl a gun 'to protect herself'. Van Saal attacks her, and this time Gilda manages to kill her tormentor. About to be acquitted of murder by a sympathetic jury, Gilda chooses to 'confess' in order to escape a trap set by Bruno. To the strains of Pagan Moon, the wronged girl bravely faces the gallows. Forthrightly told and extremely well acted, Safe in Hell features two prominent African-American performers - Nina Mae McKinney and Clarence Muse - portraying completely un-stereotypical characters. Muse, in fact, persuaded director Wellman to drop the screenplay's standard 'black' lines in favor of straight dialogue. McKinney, famous for playing the vamp in King Vidor's all-black Hallelujah! (1929), performs When It's Sleepy Time Down South by Clarence Muse.
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."
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