***SPOILERS*** No holds barred and uncompromising, in not resorting to a phony feel good ending, movie about an ex-hooker on the run from the law ending up in a place far worse then any US prison: The Caribbean island of Tortuga knows as "Hell Island" that has no extradition treaty with the United States. Since being there is like being in hell itself!
Going to a New Orleans hotel room to entertain a customer, or John, Gilda Carlson, Dorothy Mackaill,is shocked to find out that the person she's to entertain is her former boyfriend Piet Van Sall, Ralf Harolde, who forced by, getting Gilda fired from her job, her into the white slavery, prostitution, business in the first place! Trying to have his way with her Gilda bops Piet over the head with a liquor bottle that sets the place on fire with an unconscious Piet in it! It's just then that Gilda's sailor boyfriend Carl Erickson, Donald Cook, shows up at her pad proposing marriage to her since he was just promoted with a higher pay status in the US Navy.
Realizing just what kind of a the fix that Gilda is in Carl sneaks her onto his ship that's headed for Tortuga where he feels she'll be safe and plans to marry her there before he embarks back out to sea. It soon comes to the attentions of some of the fugitives from justice on Tortuga that Gilda, single white female, is available and they all try to make a play for her. It's in fact the island's "Minister of Justice" as well as the local hangman Bruno, Morgan Wallace, who really gets turned on to Gilda and unlike the local male inhabitants of Tortuga he has both the means and the ways to make his dream, in making Gilda his woman, come true!
***SPOILERS*** Things soon turn in Gilda' favor when she runs into another fugitive from justice Piet Van Saal no less whom she thorough she killed in that hotel fire back in New Orleans! With Carl soon to show up on shore leave Gilda plans to go back with him to the states a free woman but the scheming Bruno has other plans for her. Setting Gilda up to kill, for a second time, Piet Bruno provides her with a firearm that's illegal for anyone but law enforcement personnel on the island. With Piet getting good and drunk on island rum, 159% proof, he tries to finish the job, attack and rape Gilda, that he started back in New Orleans only to get blown away by her in self-defense.
On trial for the murder of Piet Van Saal Gilda is a shoo-in to be fond innocent in her lawyer Jones', Charles Middleton,brilliant defense of her. But it's the weapon charge that Jones can''t get Gilda off on and it's that what Bruno is counting on to put her in his prison and keep her all for himself as his personal sex slave for the time, six months, she's to serve there!
****MAJOR SPOILER****Making the ultimate sacrifice in not hurting the man that she loves and is married to, Carl Erickson, Gilda does the unthinkable in giving up her life so she won't betray Carl in having Bruno have his way with her the way he wants not the way he's soon forced, by the law he sworn to uphold, to do.
Going to a New Orleans hotel room to entertain a customer, or John, Gilda Carlson, Dorothy Mackaill,is shocked to find out that the person she's to entertain is her former boyfriend Piet Van Sall, Ralf Harolde, who forced by, getting Gilda fired from her job, her into the white slavery, prostitution, business in the first place! Trying to have his way with her Gilda bops Piet over the head with a liquor bottle that sets the place on fire with an unconscious Piet in it! It's just then that Gilda's sailor boyfriend Carl Erickson, Donald Cook, shows up at her pad proposing marriage to her since he was just promoted with a higher pay status in the US Navy.
Realizing just what kind of a the fix that Gilda is in Carl sneaks her onto his ship that's headed for Tortuga where he feels she'll be safe and plans to marry her there before he embarks back out to sea. It soon comes to the attentions of some of the fugitives from justice on Tortuga that Gilda, single white female, is available and they all try to make a play for her. It's in fact the island's "Minister of Justice" as well as the local hangman Bruno, Morgan Wallace, who really gets turned on to Gilda and unlike the local male inhabitants of Tortuga he has both the means and the ways to make his dream, in making Gilda his woman, come true!
***SPOILERS*** Things soon turn in Gilda' favor when she runs into another fugitive from justice Piet Van Saal no less whom she thorough she killed in that hotel fire back in New Orleans! With Carl soon to show up on shore leave Gilda plans to go back with him to the states a free woman but the scheming Bruno has other plans for her. Setting Gilda up to kill, for a second time, Piet Bruno provides her with a firearm that's illegal for anyone but law enforcement personnel on the island. With Piet getting good and drunk on island rum, 159% proof, he tries to finish the job, attack and rape Gilda, that he started back in New Orleans only to get blown away by her in self-defense.
On trial for the murder of Piet Van Saal Gilda is a shoo-in to be fond innocent in her lawyer Jones', Charles Middleton,brilliant defense of her. But it's the weapon charge that Jones can''t get Gilda off on and it's that what Bruno is counting on to put her in his prison and keep her all for himself as his personal sex slave for the time, six months, she's to serve there!
****MAJOR SPOILER****Making the ultimate sacrifice in not hurting the man that she loves and is married to, Carl Erickson, Gilda does the unthinkable in giving up her life so she won't betray Carl in having Bruno have his way with her the way he wants not the way he's soon forced, by the law he sworn to uphold, to do.