Safe in Hell

Gilda Carlson flees New Orleans to escape prosecution after killing a man who had forced her into prostitution. She takes refuge on a Caribbean island where criminals can seek asylum from the law, and waits there for her fiancé, Carl Bergen, to join her. The island proves far from safe, as its population of fugitives closes in on her and the corrupt local police chief, Eagan, pursues his own designs on her.

William A. Wellman directed this drama for First National Pictures, the fourth of the sixteen films he made in the period covered here, following Night Nurse and preceding Stingaree. Dorothy Mackaill plays Gilda, with Donald Cook as Carl, Ralf Harolde as Piet van Saal, John Wray as Eagan, Ivan F. Simpson as Crunch and Victor Varconi as General Emmanuel Jesus Maria Gomez among a credited cast of twenty-two. The film runs seventy-one minutes.

Released in December 1931, Safe in Hell draws moderate ratings from viewers, sitting at 6.9 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 2,300 votes and 6.7 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller sample of 47. The gap in vote counts reflects the difference in reach between the two platforms rather than any real disagreement about the film.