208. The Snake Pit (1948)

Directed By Anatole Litvak

Synopsis

Woman get married and starts going all weird like, is put into asylum, hilarity ensues.

Review

This is obviously not the first treatment of mental illness in cinema, we have had on this list at least two important films featuring it, Spellbound and Secret Behind the Door. Where this film contrasts with those is the fact that it finally feels like an adult treatment of the subject.

This isn't all explained by some simple "mother hatred" thing, it shows mental illness as a complex thing composed of a variety of factors which come together to create some sort of instability in the patient.

Olivia de Havilland is excellent in this and a crazy lady that gets better and worse like a pendulum until she gets into some kind of road to recovery. Her motivations are complex and the character is immediately sympathetic. This is the great beggining of "asylum films" going on to Shock Corridor and eventually Girl, Interrupted, which shouldn't really be mentioned in the same sentence as the two older films, but hey.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Gene Tierney was the first choice to play Virginia Stuart Cunningham, but was replaced by DeHavilland when she became pregnant.

The full film is on youtube, here is part I: