Films involving Mental Illness

Mental Illness: Major Films

Title	Snake Pit, The (1948)
Alternative/Original Title
Disability	Amnesia Mental breakdown
Country	USA
Length	108
Genre	Drama
Rating	3
Director	Anatole Litvak
Cast	Olivia De Havilland Mark Stevens Leo Genn Celeste Holm Glenn Langan Helen Craig Leif Erickson Beulah Bondi
Notes	B/W. Shortly after marrying a woman becomes disturbed and her husband admits her to a state mental hospital. Freudian psychiatry and electro convulsive therapy is used on her. Strongly pro-psychiatry and must now be dated. From novel by Mary Jane Ward ********************************************* Life in the institution is highly regimented, a total ban on talking among inmates. De Havilland's Virginia is hearing voices and doesn't recognise her husband. The film quickly flashes backwards from the gloomy scenes in the institution to Virginia's first meeting with her husband-to-be. They get on well but on the way to a concert she suddenly rushes off. He finds her and they marry but she becomes distant. Back in the institution we see her undergoing Electric Shock Treatment. And there are scenes of the huge room full of beds in which the women sleep. These are worse conditions than in prison. Virginia is released before she is ready and from then the film becomes a mystery story in a search to find out what caused her illness. The film is dated and only marginally of historical interest for its attitude towards psychiatry.

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