The Snake Pit

Insane minds have become a favorite study of Hollywood dramas, but the psychological twist has generally been used as modern gloss to the standard boy-meets-girl glamor. In even the best of these, the deranged mind was merely held up as an interesting object to look at. "The Snake Pit," however, void of all hints of Hollywood glamor, achieves the startling effect of entering the diseased mind and reflecting its horrors and fears--its despair in groping in darkness for a ray of light. The mind is not exhibited but analyzed; the audience not merely understands it but feels its tensions. These powerful effects are achieved without off-focus blurs, mad music, or tilting rooms, but with fine direction and expert acting. The one photographic trick is used in picturing the writhing mass of hopeless minds struggling at the bottom of a pit.

Olivia DeHaviland's performance as the mentally sick girl is superb. Almost the entire credit for the success of the film must go to her acting. She shows the torments and confusion of the girl in the early symptoms of trouble, in the depths of her madness, and then when the signs of improvement and eventual recovery come. She handles the difficult job of reflecting mental states so well that the doctor does not have to say that she is improving.

Leo Genn does an admirable job as the soft-speaking doctor who takes a personal interest in this case and gradually uncovers the source of the ailment; Mark Stevens is adequate as the girl's husband. Celeste Holm appears briefly as a completely mad girl who tries to choke all who come near her, and is only comforted by the heroine. Her powerful portrayal of the pitiful figure leaves a strong impression, for she does not recover and is left in darkness at the bottom of the pit.

The plot of the movie is the true story of Mary Jane Ward, as taken from her book. It begins with her first realization that she is in an insane asylum. The movie then traces her gradual recovery through two relapses to an eventual release. As she moves through several stages of the asylum on her way to improvement, groups in all conditions of insanity surround her, from Bedlam-like unfortunates to the mildly eccentric.

The stark horrors of the public asylum are realistically presented to show the terrifying fate of the mentally sick. An ignorant doctor and a power-loving nurse each causes relapses when the patient is almost recovered. Her cure is the work of one doctor who takes special interest in the case. Without this doctor, she would be one more at the bottom of the pit.

The picture is especially noteworthy for its lack of Hollywood exaggeration or unreal emotion, although it strains at one touch of sentimentality when the inmates tearfully sing "Going Home" at an asylum dance. Except for this minor defect, the film's purity aids it in revealing the dark horrors of mental disease at the bottom of a snake pit.