The Snake Pit

Fall of '48 post #7

The Snake Pit

November 4, 1948

Starring Olivia de Havilland, Leo Genn, Mark Stevens, and Betsy Blair

Juniper Hill State Hospital is a large ward for mental patients. One of it's patients, Virginia Cunningham (de Havilland), originally comes from a wealthy background. She has a loving husband and a lovely home, but she was sent to the mental institution supposedly for schizophrenia. She hears voices, and eventually gets so that she cannot keep track of reality, so she is sent to Juniper Hill for safety and healing.

When she is first admitted, Virginia is so lost that she does not even know who her own husband, Robert (Stevens) is. Virginia's doctor, Dr. Mark Kik (Genn), works with her to try and bring to light what it is that unhinges her. Through the use of shock therapy, and hypnotherapy among other things, they begin to make good progress. She tells him about traumatic events from her childhood, a previous failed engagement, and about how she met her husband.

The hospital is split into 12 different wards, Ward 1 being the best and 12 being the worst. Dr. Kik manages to get Virginia a place in Ward 1, believing that as she continues to progress, it would be beneficial for her to be away from less critical patients. Virginia undoubtedly would have continued to improve even more, but one of the nurses in the new ward believes that Dr. Kik coddles her too much, so she is very strict, harsh, and even brutal towards Virginia. Eventually she torments Virginia so much that Virginia has a breakdown and is sent away from Ward 1 in a straight jacket. Dr. Kik hears what happens and knows that unless she is given special attention very soon, Virginia will have a full setback, so he begins to work with her more extensively again. Virginia improves once more, but she is now in the 12th Ward, and she knows she has a lot of work ahead of her still. In order to leave the hospital, she has to have a full interview in order to be sure that it is safe to release her. When Virginia gets to the point where going home becomes a possibility, she is terrified that she will have a relapse and that she will not be able to leave. In the end, her husband Robert comes to take her home, and she is successfully discharged.

The Snake Pit was a film adaptation of a novel of the same name by successful author Mary Jane Ward. The story was allegedly written by Ward as a commentary on the state of psychiatric facilities at the time, urging for reform. The 1948 film was a delicate masterpiece. Olivia de Havilland portrayed Virginia Cunningham, a character which was the polar opposite of the roles she was usually cast in. But de Havilland's hard work payed off, because the film was very well received. The film won the Academy Award for Best Sound Recording and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Writing Adapted Screenplay; de Havilland, who had already won an Academy Award the previous year, was also nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

"It was strange, here I was among all those people, and at the same time I felt as if I were looking at them from some place far away, the whole place seemed to me like a deep hole and the people down in it like strange animals, like...like snakes, and I've been thrown into it...yes...as though...as though I were in a snake pit..."

-Virginia Cunningham, The Snake Pit