Search - The Snake Pit on DVD

Olivia de Havilland is Amazing

James L. | 03/14/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Snake Pit was released at a time (late Forties) when Hollywood was taking a more serious look at important issues. This film deals with mental illness and mental institutions, and does so in a direct and honest way. Olivia de Havilland stars as a wife / aspiring writer whose husband, Mark Stevens, has to commit her to an institution when her irrational behaviour becomes too much to deal with. In the institution, she fights to regain her mental health with the assistance of a kind doctor, Leo Genn. But it's not easy, and the film shows the setbacks she faces, not to mention the horrors of life in an asylum. She is subjected to electroshock treatments, cruel nurses, and patients even more disturbed than she is, all in conditions that could hardly foster improved mental health. It truly resembles a snake pit, particularly in one memorable shot taken above the bizarre goings-on below. Although the honest presentation of the subject matter is important, the real strength in the movie lies in de Havilland's performance. She's incredible in a role that showcases her dramatic ability to it's full extent. She manages not to go over the top, which would have been easy to do given the subject matter, and she makes the character believable and sympathetic. The film and de Havilland's performance should be seen."

Madness circa 1948

J from NY | New York | 11/01/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

""The Snake Pit" is a film with a message, despite the more dated aspects to it. In fact, the astute observer will note that mental health care really has not come all that far since the making of this film. The shock therapy that Havilland's character is subjected to, the "ice baths", and the biased treatment she is given by staff, one nurse in particular, all go on now, only in a more subtle, whitewashed fashion.



Virginia (Havilland) is a woman suffering from profound memory loss, confusion, depression and a slight problem pinning down who she really is. The filmmakers must at some point have decided not to go "hardcore" with their portrayal of Virginia's state, as her symptoms (in the opening scene, for example, she is absolutely concvinced she is in prison when she has already been in the hospital for a number of months) bespeak of something far more serious than the "lost father" complex which supposedly lies at the core of her acting out and bizarre behaviors. The ending is a bit sugar coated, although this is most likely what everyone was hoping for.



The masterful thing about this film is that we get to know Virginia so well--the sequences with her husband Robert, her kinship with fellow patients, the repertoire she has going with the British doctor who seems to be the only one who remotely understands her--and yet she remains enigmatic and mysterious the entire time. The plot is crafted in such a way that we are dangled from the director's parapet about precisely who Virginia really is until she undergoes real therapy. The censors in 1948 must have been pretty stringent, since we never get to see Havilland's character "act out", and hoky hallucinations seem to jump in every time she attacks someone, not allowing us to see.



The best parts in the movie take place with her husband, who she refuses to get very intimate with. The way he sticks by her despite her insane behavior and inability to "love anybody" is both moving and believable. I wouldn't call this a disturbing film, really. Virginia's plight is tame compared to what we have seen other directors do with the theme of the mentally ill since. But I'm sure it was more than disturbing for 1948. A seemingly forgotten film which deserves more attention."