La fille de l'enfer

DOROTHY MACKAILL is a name unknown by today's moviegoers but she was a pretty good actress judging by her work as a prostitute on the lam in SAFE IN HELL. It's the kind of tough gal role that would have suited someone like Barbara Stanwyck, but Mackaill is a pretty blonde who nails her character completely.

After giving her ex-lover rough treatment and thinking he's dead after his apartment catches fire, she's advised to flee to a tropical island where there's no extradition to the United States for criminals. What she discovers is that the island is a living hell and all of its inhabitants are fugitives from the law.

There's such a ring of familiarity about the whole story that I can swear it must have been remade years later, perhaps for an Ann Sheridan movie or a vehicle for Jean Harlow. I'll have to check it out, but I'm sure I've seen this whole story before in a later version.

For pre-code fans, this is a "must see." All of the situations are racy enough to send the censors reeling and some of the dialog is crisp and believable in a way that most films of the '30s never achieve.

About as downbeat as any film about sinners, it's directed in forthright fashion by William A. Wellman, with some decidedly unpleasant looking men cast in supporting roles as island outcasts. Worth a watch for the performances of Dorothy Mackaill and Nina Mae McKinney in the only femme roles.

Only other recognizable cast member for me was IVAN SIMPSON, who had a brief scene in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD where he played the proprietor of Kent Road Tavern who admits Maid Marian so that she can inform Robin's men about his capture.