a gritty olivia de havilland performance to breakthru her cuttie pie image in the swashbuckler flicks with errol flynn...she plays a mental patient with electra complex and also suffers from the lack of maternal love....her lovely pupils are permeated with hapless dread that seem...( read more)
I don't know why exactly, but I really liked this movie. It's dated and relies on armchair psychology way too much, but I liked it.
Olivia De Havilland stars as a mental patient, who is unsure of why she is at the asylum. Flash backs show why she feels the way she does, and why she pulls away from anyone who isn't like her father. As the film progresses, Olivia's character realizes what has occurred in her li...( read more)
"The Snake Pit" begins with Virginia battling confusion in a mid-level ward of the hospital, but the events that brought her there are shown through a series of flashbacks. First, her loving husband (Mark Stevens) recounts how she was strangely reticent during their courtship and...( read more)
The Snake Pit is about a woman who finds herself committed to an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there. Olivia de Havilland gives a fantastic performance in the role of the main character. The movie gives flashbacks to her life and shows how she ended in the asylum....( read more)
Starts out well and promises much but fails to deliver. Good acting in the well written lead character but the conventional arc of drama seems to be completely amiss.
Groundbreaking 1948 production on mental illness and its treatment in state institutions, "The Snake Pit" maintains interest today.
Thanks to the lively direction of Anatole Litvak, good scripting, and the enormous talent of Olivia deHavilland as Virginia, this film makes an impressive statement.
Mark Stevens is always a dependable leading man, and Leo Genn a welcome addition to any dramatic scenario.
While the success of state-run institutions of the past were a decidedly mixed bag, today's situation is no improvement. It certainly pays to take charge of one's self, life a healthy lifestyle, and laugh a lot!
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