The Hardest Noirs: Hell's Half Acre
Pineapple Noir
What location would you choose as the most unlikely setting for Film Noir?
How about the Aloha State: Hawaii?
So far as I can tell, Hell's Half Acre is the only Film Noir set in Hawaii.
The movie was filmed on location, making the most of lovely beach scenery before shifting to the Hell's Half Acre neighborhood. The fleeting location shots there are suitably downscale and the studio set of the crowded tenements stands in for the real thing. In reality, by 1954, the time of filming, Hell's Half Acre was fading away. It's hey day was during World War Two, where G.I.s, Marines, and sailors could find plenty of hookers, booze, and other entertainments. A few years later, it was gone, a victim of re-development.
Donna Williams (Evelyn Keyes), listening to a record of Hawaiian music, thinks she recognizes the voice of her dead husband, supposedly killed during the Pearl Harbor attack. She decides to visit the islands to try and find him, performing under the name Chet Chester. Chester (played by Wendell Corey) has just taken the rap for his girlfriend, who shot his blackmailer right square in his forehead. Chester is a bank robber who fled the states to set up shop in Hawaii as a nightclub owner.
Chester is in custody when he is taken to identify the body of his girlfriend, who was murdered by his business partner Roger Kong (Phillip Ahn). He escapes and sets off to find Kong. Meanwhile, Williams has arrived and is trying to meet with him to see if he is indeed her long lost husband. Thinking that he might have fled to the shady neighborhood of Honolulu known as Hell's Half Acre, she makes the highly questionable decision to get a job as a "Taxi Dancer" to find clues to his wherabouts. Here she is kidnapped by Kong who thinks she can identify him. She's knocked out and wakes up naked (???) in the custody of a drunk couple (Jesse White and Noir stalwart Marie Windsor). When the drunk husband drugs her and tries to rape her, her screams bring Chester running to her rescue.
From here, Williams and Chester spar over his true identity as they try to find Kong. Chester is taken by police but escapes again then is taken again but talks his way into setting up a trap for Kong. He finally admits he is Roger Williams, but willingly walks to his death to both free his wife and finally bring justice to Kong.
Hell's Half Acre is far from a polished or logical movie. Elsa Lanchester plays a wacky cab driver who acts as a tour guide for Evelyn Ankers but she disappears halfway through the movie. The exact nature of Corey's shady criminal business is never explained satisfactorily although it serves as the reason everything happens in the movie. The behavior of the police throughout is questionable to say the least.
What distinguishes Hell's Half Acre as a Noir is its grimy cast of characters and its fatalistic ending. Lovable character actor Jesse White (the lonely Maytag Repairman!) delivers a memorable turn as a slimy, pervy drunk. Marie Windsor isn't given much to work with, but is a good match for White's sleaziness, especially when she hooks up with Phillip Ahn. Corey shows here why he should have starred in more Noirs, as he brings a somber realism to his role as the doomed Chester.
I have previously praised Evelyn Keyes in the Noirs: The Prowler and 99 River Street. She is just as solid here.
John L. Russell, future cinematographer of Psycho, provides plenty of standard Noir shadows and darkness here, enough to make you forget they were filming in the Aloha State.
Don the Beachcomber, father of Tiki culture, is listed as a 'consultant" for the film. Not sure if it's because it was filmed in one of his clubs or because he served fruity boat drinks for the crew.
Hell's Half Acre isn't a Film Noir classic, but it has enough of the right elements to make it worth a watch. Watch it with a Mai Tai or Dark and Stormy Night or The Molokai Hand Grenade.
The Molokai Hand Grenade
151 proof rum, one shot
gin, one shot
Galliano, one shot
Two shots lime vodka.
Lemonade to flavor.
Serve in a tall highball glass with ice.
Consume in a comfortable chair.