Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Mental illness in films once was treated as a rather romantic condition; people went mad as a byproduct of
tragic love, and when they did, it was often a rather attractive madness. Bette Davis in Juarez did
a lot of wild-eyed staring, and recited "crazy dialogue" that was more clever than that given her when sane.
The postwar years opened the doors for all kinds of subject matter considered too harsh for the screen.
There was nothing funny about the inside of an alcoholic ward showed by Billy Wilder in 1945's
The Lost Weekend. Instead of pink elephants on parade, Ray Milland saw visions of a bat biting
into a mouse, with blood running down the walls. The Snake Pit (not capitalized on the movie
title itself) is an attempt at visualizing the reality of a nervous breakdown, and even if the psychology
is far too pat, it does an excellent job of showing the dehumanizing terror of an asylum. Olivia de
Havilland's performance conveys all the horror of losing control over one's life, and one's mind.
Synopsis:
Virgina Cunningham (Olivia de Havilland) is committed to a mental health facility
soon after her marriage to Robert Cunningham (Mark Stevens), who cannot understand her unmotivated
panic and hysteria. Sensitive doctor Mark Kik (Leo Genn) tries to help Virginia find the key that
precipitated her mental breakdown, but almost everything about the asylum militates against him.
The building itself is like a prison and the top staff are more concerned with processing the patients
than they are curing them. The overworked nursing staff, some in supervisory positions, abuse the
inmates with unreasonable punishment and sadistic retribution. When Robert tries to get her released
too early, she's sent to the worst ward in the hospital.
The Snake Pit starts identically to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Virginia is first seen
in the asylum garden, disoriented and frightened. She's been in the hospital for weeks, but suddenly
doesn't know where she is or how she got there. Sympathetic co-inmate Grace (Celeste Holm) tries to calm
her. And then we realize that Virginia's loss of memory is a defense mechanism - the hospital is so
oppressive that her mind tries to blot out the locked doors, unhappy women and cruel guards.
The Snake Pit's depiction of life in an institution like this is more than illuminating. Put
fifty nurses into a place where they have to act like prison guards to unpredictable and possibly
dangerous women, and of course they're going to act like storm trooper disciplinarians. Already confused,
Virginia finds it impossible to concentrate on the terse instructions she's given. Bitter, spiteful nurses
like Nurse Davis (Helen Craig) are all too eager to take her lack of instant obedience as a personal
insult. The angels of mercy behave more like inquisitors. 1
Virginia's illness is realistically depicted. She's disoriented and big parts of her life are blotted
out of her memory. She has a hard time believing she has a husband, even though
she knows that she's married. Cause and effect have become disconnected and time no longer seems
to exist.
Leo Genn (Starbuck in Moby Dick)
is good as the doctor who sincerely tries to help Virginia. He has no desires besides curing her, and
does what he can to soften the harshness of asylum life. For this attitude he's considered
unproductive and a detriment to the smooth running of the place. His peers think he's spending too
much time on pet patients, and the nurses resent not being in total control.
The professional response to mental illness is of course limited to 1948 practices, and Virginia's case is
far too simplistic. When Dr. Kik finally gains her confidence, she conveniently spells out the exact traumatic
situations in her childhood and past life (excellent flashback material with Natalie Schafer of
Gilligan's Island as an unloving mother) that have caused her breakdown. It isn't the
"instant cure" of laughable movies like Marnie or
Spellbound, but it is more than a
little oversimplified.
The most frightening part of The Snake Pit are the shock therapy sessions. Lobotomies aren't
pictured, but even kindly Dr. Kik prescribes multiple shock therapy as a way of cutting corners and
getting the subject to respond to treatment - mainly, to answer when spoken to. The nurses,
especially the sadistic Nurse Davis, seem to love the power of administering these jolts of
electricity (seen off-camera) to the helpless patients. It's not commented upon but the clear
implication is that cruelty and abuse in hospitals approaches the practices of Nazi medicine. I'm
surprised that the medical and mental health professions didn't protest.
The best part of the movie is the talented cast of supporting players around Olivia de Havilland,
especially those playing her fellow patients. Besides Celeste Holm, there's a young Betsy Blair
(Marty) playing a silent, dangerous woman who tries to strangle anyone who touches her.
We're used to seeing Blair as a mousy sweetheart, and here she's as dangerous as a coiled
snake. Beulah Bondi plays a demented matron, and 30s comedienne Ruth Donnelly, familiar from a
long list of sexy pre-code movies, is a friendly associate. Also on view are Minna Gombell,
Virginia Brissac (Rebel without a Cause,
Monsieur Verdoux), Ann Doran,
and Isabel Jewell from Lost Horizon and The Seventh Victim. Of special note is
Katherine Locke as a particularly deluded inmate; her tortured face is well remembered from the
bizarre and depressing film noir Try and Get Me!
The most unforgettable supporting player is Helen Craig, the icy head nurse who makes Miss Ratched from
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest seem like Florence Nightingale. Ms. Craig carries something cold
in her face, as if she herself had undergone some terrible trauma in her past. Craig achieved a kind of
noir immortality the next year in Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night, as the black widow
who informs on the luckless hero to free her own man from prison.
Leo Genn is like a less-handsome James Mason - a friendly, trusting soul with a reassuring voice.
The supporting men are less memorable. Dull Mark Stevens is Virginia's husband and Glenn Langan
(The Amazing Colossal Man) another doctor.
The classy Fox production maintains a realistic tension from the beginning when Alfred Newman's
ominous chords are heard over the logo instead of the Fox fanfare. It is heard in one of the
flashbacks when Virginia goes to a movie theater. The music score stays off to the side and only
comes to the fore in the dreamlike terror scene, when Virginia finds herself in the midst of a
'snakepit' of screaming, lost women.
The Snake Pit has a potentially happy ending, a near-necessity in 1948. Marketed as a
women's picture, word of mouth caught on for the film as it had for Mary Jane Ward's book, and
Darryl Zanuck had another socially progressive hit on his hands. 2
Fox Home Video's DVD of The Snake Pit presents this top-notch thriller in excellent
condition, in a sharp and detailed B&W print. The extras are good too. Aubrey Solomon's commentary
contains a wealth of facts and background for the curious, with especially good information on the
supporting cast and the medical procedures we see.
The rest of the extras are the expected trailer and still gallery, and a series of mostly repetitive
newsreels that show Miss de Havilland mostly receiving awards. There is also a nice view of the
New York premiere Marquee.
The audio has a choice of mono and stereo tracks. I don't know if the stereo is original or a
modern augmentation. Studios experimented with stereo soundtracks through the forties and you never
know when one will turn up.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
The Snake Pit rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: commentary by author Aubrey Solomon, trailer, several newsreel shorts
with the film and Olivia de Havilland receiving awards.
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: June 12, 2004
Footnotes:
1. I got a personal taste of
this in Tripler Army hospital at age 8, when I had my tonsils out. The nurses there were sick of unruly
Army brats and ruled their ward with threats and fear. I was shy and my frightenend silence was treated
as insolence. They took my books away from me. The nurses didn't like the fact that I wasn't
instantly obedient (I was terrified) and one practically beat me up when she gave me a bath. This was
1959, and about a dozen 10 year-olds and I were expected to play in a playroom meant for toddlers.
The kids acted up, so the nurse in charge tied us to chairs, while she watched American
Bandstand on TV. I was terrorized. When my mom showed up two days later, all I would do is
whisper, "Get me out of here." So far, I haven't fallen into an adult nervous breakdown because of
the experience. Return
2. Michael Arick informs me that it is true that writer Arthur Laurents
did write uncredited on The Snake Pit: "Yes, Arthur talks at length about adapting the material
into a screenplay, directly for Anatole Litvak. There's a long section in his autobiography about it...
it was on the strength of this that Litvak later asked him to adapt
Anastasia for the screen. Laurents
was effectively blacklisted, but because Litvak liked him and the Ingrid Bergman film was being
shot in England, Litvak hired him again, breaking the blacklist." Return
DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson
|