Review of Safe in Hell (1931) by Antonius B — 13 Mar 2018

I liked Dorothy Mackaill in this film; her acting feels natural and her character is feisty when fending off the unwanted advances of men. She's a prostitute, but the back story revealed is that she was once a secretary who was raped by her boss, and it was discovered by his wife. Instead of that resulting in trouble for the boss, she was summarily let go, and then the two of them prevented her from getting work elsewhere, so she resorted to selling herself. He then has the nerve to turn up and ask for her as a client. The two struggle and she accidentally kills him. Her old boyfriend (Donald Cook) turns up at the right time, and the two of them flee for a Caribbean island known for its lack of extradition laws. Whew, and that's just in the first 10 minutes or so.

While the story may sound like it's sympathetic to the plight of this poor woman, I found it to be misogynistic and loathsome. The men on the island are all aroused by "the only white woman on the island", and when they're not ogling her or man-spreading (in one scene, almost comically, with chairs all facing her room), they take turns trying to get her into bed. She is expected to remain faithful to Cook, who had to leave her. When one finds out about her past and that she's not a virgin, he feels as if she's played him for a fool and betrayed him by turning her down. (The nerve of her!).

The religious morality messages are also heavy-handed. To the horror of being forced into prostitution, the message is trust that God has a plan. To being left alone with a bunch of sex-starved criminals, the message is to keep the faith, and remain chaste. The undercurrent is that the burden is always on this woman, even when she kills someone to prevent being raped. I'm all for pre-code raciness, but the sentiment behind this one just isn't all that pleasant. On top of that, the script is lazy, and the production quality is low. There are far more enjoyable pre-code films, even if one constrains oneself to those directed by William A. Wellman in 1931 (see 'Night Nurse' and 'The Public Enemy').

Frankly, the highlight of the movie was the African-American characters of Nina Mae McKinney and Clarence Muse, who play the innkeeper and porter. They are presented to us as intelligent, playful, and articulate, which was a real rarity in films from this era. Their dialogue was apparently originally written in "Negro dialect", but happily they got away with not performing it that way. McKinney also sings a nice little number, "When It's Sleepy Time Down South".