The Snake Pit is a 1948 American psychological drama film directed by Anatole Litvak and starring Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Beulah Bondi, and Lee Patrick. Based on Mary Jane Ward's 1946 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, the film recounts the tale of a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there. The novel was adapted for the screen by Frank Partos and Millen Brand, in screen credits order, and Arthur Laurents (uncredited).
Plot Virginia Cunningham is an apparently schizophrenic patient at a mental hospital called the Juniper Hill State Hospital. She hears voices and seems so out of touch with reality that she does not recognize her husband Robert. Dr. Kik works with her, and flashbacks show how Virginia and Robert met a few years earlier in Chicago. He worked for a publisher who rejected her writing, and they bumped into each other again in the cafeteria. Occasionally she continued to drop by the cafeteria so they got to know each other. Despite their blossoming romance, Virginia abruptly leaves town without explanation. Robert moves to New York and bumps into her again at the Philharmonic. After she provides a flimsy excuse for her absence and departure, they pick up where they left off, though she remains evasive and avoids his desire for marriage. Eventually, Virginia brings up the possibility of marriage. They marry on May 7, but Virginia acts erratically again. She cannot sleep and loses touch with reality, as she feels it is November and snaps when Robert corrects her. The rest of the film follows her therapy. Dr. Kik puts her through electro-shock treatment and narcosynthesis. Dr. Kik wants to get to the "causes of her unconscious rejection." The film includes many flashbacks, including her earlier failed engagement to Gordon as well as childhood issues. The film shows her progress and what happens to her along the way. The mental hospital is organized on a system of wards, with the best functioning patients assigned to the wards with the lowest numbers, which have better furnishings and more relaxed rules for patient behavior. Virginia moves to the lowest level (One), where she is treated well by a young nurse but is picked on by Nurse Davis, the only truly abusive nurse in the hospital. Davis is jealous of Dr. Kik's interest in Virginia, which she sees as excessive. Nurse Davis goads Virginia into an outburst which results in Virginia being straitjacketed and expelled from Level One into the "snake pit", where patients considered beyond help are simply placed together in a large padded cell and abandoned. Dr. Kik, learning of this, has Virginia returned to Level One, but away from Nurse Davis's care. Despite this setback, Dr. Kik's care continues to improve Virginia's mental state. Over time, Virginia gains insight and self-understanding, and is able to leave the hospital. The film depicts the bureaucratic regimentation of the institution, the staff (some unkind and aloof, some kind and empathetic), and relationships between patients, from which Virginia learns as much as she does in therapy.
Cast
Production Gene Tierney was the first choice to play the role of Virginia, but was replaced by de Havilland when Tierney became pregnant. When the book The Snake Pit was still in galleys, the president of Random House, Bennett Cerf, showed it to his friend Anatole Litvak, who bought the rights. Litvak was born in Kiev to Lithuanian Jewish parents and learned filmmaking in Leningrad. He began his career as a director with films in Berlin, Paris, and London. Moving to the United States, Litvak became known as the most prominent director of films with antifascist sentiment. Most notably, he directed Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939, alerting American audiences to the rise of Hitler. When the United States entered the war, Litvak enlisted in the U.S. Army and co-directed with Frank Capra the Why We Fight films, which Capra produced. In his contact with men who had survived combat, Litvak became interested in the psychiatric treatment of veterans and the plight of the mentally ill. After buying the rights to The Snake Pit, Litvak sold them to Darryl F. Zanuck at Twentieth Century-Fox. Zanuck had produced films with social conscience, most notably The Grapes of Wrath and Gentleman's Agreement. With The Snake Pit, Zanuck added mental patients to Jews and the poor as groups left out of the American dream. Director 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 did not have to convince de Havilland, who threw herself into the research with an intensity that surprised even those who knew her well. Her interest derived in part from having had a childhood friend who was hospitalized with schizophrenia. De Havilland 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, after the film's release, when columnist Florabel Muir questioned in print whether any mental institution actually "allowed contact dances among violent inmates," Muir was surprised by a telephone call from de Havilland, who assured her she had attended several such dances herself. Much of the film was filmed in the Camarillo State Mental Hospital in California. Litvak was an early adopter and master of the whip pan scene transition device, and used it no fewer than eight times in this film.
Reception On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on ten reviews, with a weighted average rating of 8.1/10.
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