Main Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Helen Craig, Glenn Langan
Release Year: 1948
Country: US
Run Time: 108 minutes
Plot
"A woman loses her mind and is confined to a mental institution." That's the usual TV-listing encapsulation of The Snake Pit -- and like most such encapsulations, it only scratches the film's surface. Olivia de Havilland stars as an outwardly normal young woman, married to loyal, kindly Mark Stevens. As de Havilland's behavior becomes more and more erratic, however, Stevens comes to the sad conclusion that she needs professional help. She is sent to an overcrowded state hospital for treatment -- a curious set-up, in that, while de Havilland is treated with compassion by soft-spoken psychiatrist Leo Genn, she is sorely abused by resentful matrons and profoundly disturbed patients. Throughout the film, she is threatened with being clapped into "the snake pit" -- an open room where the most severe cases are permitted to roam about and jabber incoherently -- if she doesn't realign her thinking. In retrospect, it seems that de Havilland's biggest "crime" is that she wants to do her own thinking, and that she isn't satisfied with merely being a loving wife. While this subtext may not have been intentional, it's worth noting that de Havilland escapes permanent confinement only when she agrees to march to everyone else's beat. Amazingly, Olivia de Havilland didn't win an Academy Award for her harrowing performance in The Snake Pit (the only Oscar won by the film was for sound recording). While some of the psychological verbiage in this adaptation of Mary Jane Ward's autobiographical novel seems antiquated and overly simplistic today, The Snake Pit was rightly hosannahed as a breakthrough film in 1948. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
At a time when Hollywood's understanding of mental illness hovered at the level of Arsenic and Old Lace, The Snake Pit bravely suggested that healthy, respectable people could suffer severe depression and nervous breakdowns, and that emotional maladies were treatable, and even curable. The film's representation of Virginia Cunningham and her troubles may seem elementary by today's standards, and the worries about her ability to remain a good wife may feel archaically sexist. But Anatole Litvak's grim portrait of the mental hospital and its residents remain strong and startling, and Olivia de Havilland's Oscar-nominated portrayal of Virginia was a bravely unglamorous choice that still holds up as her best performance. While the film's sunny ending seems a bit pat, it suggests that Virginia's crippling anxieties could be cured, like any other disease, a radical notion in Hollywood in the 1940s. If The Snake Pit does not seem quite as brave or groundbreaking today as it did on first release, it's still an effective and powerful drama. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Virginia, the wife of a wealthy financier, is hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. Unable to perceive what is going on, for a long time she is not even sure where she is. The film follows her progress through the various wards and her psychotherapy sessions with an understanding doctor. In flashbacks she returns to her childhood and explores incidents which might have caused her breakdown. Over time she gains insight and self-understanding, and is able to leave the hospital. The film also depicts the bureaucratic regimentation of the institution, the staff — some brutal and ignorant, some kindhearted — and relationships between patients, from which Virginia learns as much as she does in therapy.
Criticism
The critics were generally kind, with Louella Parsons declaring: "It is the most courageous subject ever attempted on the screen". Walter Winchell wrote: "Its seething quality gets inside of you." On the other hand, Herman F. Weinberg, a noted psychiatrist, was unimpressed. He wrote, "A film of superficial veracity that requires a bigger man than Litvak; a good film with bad things in it."[1]
The film has come under fire from some women's rights authors for a seeming misportrayal of Virginia's difficulties and the implication that accepting a subservient role as a wife and mother is part of her "cure".[2] Other film analysts view it as successful in conveying Ward's view of the uncertainties of post-WWII life and women's roles.[3]
The film also won the International Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1949, where it was cited for "a daring inquiry in a clinical case dramatically performed."[1]
Gene Tierney was the first choice to play Virginia Stuart Cunningham, but was replaced by Olivia de Havilland when Tierney became pregnant.
Director Anatole Litvak insisted upon three months of grueling research. He demanded that the entire cast and crew accompany him to various mental institutions and to lectures by leading psychiatrists. He didn't have to convince Olivia de Havilland. She threw herself into the research with an intensity that surprised even those who knew her best. She watched carefully each of the procedures then in vogue, including hydrotherapy and electric shock treatments. When permitted, she sat in on long individual therapy sessions. She attended social functions, including dinners and dances with the patients. In fact, when, after the film's release, columnist Florabel Muir questioned in print whether any mental institution actually "allowed contact dances among violent inmates," she was surprised by a telephone call from de Havilland, who assured her she had attended several such dances herself.[4]
Censorship
The British censor required a forward added to the movie that explained to the audience that everyone in the movie was an actor — and that conditions in British hospitals were unlike those portrayed in the film.[1]
Impact
The film led to changes in the conditions of mental institutions in the United States. In 1949, Herb Stein of Daily Variety wrote "Wisconsin is the seventh state to institute reforms in its mental hospitals as a result of The Snake Pit.[5]
Publicity releases from 20th Century Fox claimed that twenty-six of the then forty-eight states had enacted reform legislation because of the movie. This is a very difficult claim to verify because few of the bills introduced, regulations changed or funding increases implemented specifically mentioned The Snake Pit as a motivating factor.[5]
References
^ abcClooney, Nick (November 2002). The Movies That Changed Us: Reflections on the Screen. New York: Atria Books, a trademark of Simon & Schuster. p. 143. ISBN 0-7434-1043-2.
^ Fishbein, Leslie, "The Snake Pit (1948): The Sexist Nature of Sanity," American Quarterly 31: 5 (1979): 641-655.
