Review of Safe in Hell

I saw this for the first time a few years ago in a festival of pre-Code films, and it was a revelation--Dorothy Mackaill was new to me and she is excellent as the "loose woman" who finds a very strange salvation on a Caribbean island that is a stand-in for hell, if not in fact the real thing. The atmosphere is palpable--you can almost feel the heat and smell the sweat. This movie is uncanny in being both intensely grim and very funny. Sort of like a painting by the German Expressionist George Grosz come to life. Wonderful camera set-ups, such as the front-on shot of the row of seated disreputable lechers, legs spread and ogling Dorothy as she climbs the rickety stairs to her hotel room. Also unusual for a film of that time is the respectful treatment of Black characters--there is a very nice camaraderie between Dorothy and the woman who works at the hotel.