A lot of fun.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Well-intentioned film, merit in the way it shows us what psychiatric institutions were like at the time and the fantastic performance of Olivia De Havilland, in the role of Virginia. However, the film fails in how it "solves" the problem of Virginia's disease. After all, even excessive, sequences of Virginia's forgetfulness and confusion, her "cure" is resolved abruptly, very "in haste," and unconvincing. It was worth the director little ability to give credibility to Virginia's improvement through Dr. Kik's psychoanalysis. It was all very fast, the previous development of the film, sometimes even too slow, did not leave this anticipation so fast and implausible based on 1 or 2 flashbacks from when Virginia was a child. Still, a movie that deserves to be seen by the virudes I mentioned above.

This film runs like a long infomercial for Freudian psychoanalysis. Olivia de Havilland looks wonderful, and innocent, even in her times of psychotic stress. Nowadays, and I suppose back then as well, films with an actress suffering, and being brave enough to not look her best, is serious Oscar bait. It seemed to have snagged Ms. de Havilland a nomination but not a win. Over the whole film, the plot is facile, with the utterly predictable story arc. Sometimes the other inmates are portrayed realistically, and at others, their spirit of cooperation should get them their release. Mental hospitals were, and are, depressing places, probably necessarily so, but these days, with the refusal to commit extremely sick individuals, policy does not serve well the sick people or society at large. I'm not sure there exists a good solution.

A memorable 1948 film with Olivia DeHavilland giving a N.Y. City film critic winning performance. It would take someone of Jane Wyman's caliber in "Johnny Belinda" to have beaten her out. That was some year for best actress nominees. We also had Barbara Stanwyck, Irene Dunne and Ingrid Bergman for "Sorry Wrong Number," and "I Remember Mama," as well as "Joan of Arc."The film depicts a shocking indictment of our mental hospitals for that period of time.DeHavilland was outstanding here. The various nuances that she showed as a mentally unbalanced person were phenomenal. She got fantastic support from Mark Stevens, her husband in the film as well as Leo Genn, phenomenal as the doctor who understood her.Ruth Donnelly, Beulah Bondi and particularly Betsy Blair were terrific as mentally ill women. Amazing that Celeste Holm, who had won the supporting Oscar the year before for "Gentleman's Agreement," had such a small role in this film.The picture brings out how terrible mental illness can be and the desperation of those trying to get better.As we saw with "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," there are plenty of nurses who should not have been in psychiatric wards.It takes compassion and understanding to unlock the mystery to mental illnesses. The picture aptly did that.

***SPOILERS*** The film "The Snake Pit" is based on the true life story, and book, of Mary Jane Ward who herself was a patient in an upstate New York State mental hospital for some 8 1/2 months which is why it's so accurate in depicting the events that happened there to her.Virginia Stuart, Olivia deHavilland, is a young writer who's looking to author her first novel when she meets young and handsome Robert Cunningham, Mark Stevens, who works for a publishing house in New York City. At first things are going really good for the young couple and their soon married until one day when Virigina spies the date May 12 on a local newspaper at her and Robert's apartment and completely loses it! Becoming paranoid and uncontrollable over the mysterious date-May 12-Robert feels that she's having some kind of mental breakdown and tries to get her, without Virginia going along with it, psychiatric help. It's then that all the demons from Virginia's dark past comes to the surface in her not being able to face them! And it's non other then her husband Robert who unknowingly set them off!Shocking and eye opening even now as it was then back, in 1948, drama about mental illness and how it can not only destroy those who suffer from it but also their, in this case husband, loved ones and family members along with them. Committed to the Juniper Hill Mental Hospital Virginia is put through "the works", like anti-psychotic drugs and shock treatment, not only in trying to identify the reasons for her deteriorating mental state but to cure her from them as well. It's when the "Top Kick" at the hospital Dr. Mark Kik, Leo Genn, put the by now amnesic suffering Virginia under his wings that she finally showed signs of improvement. But only after going through the living hell of overcoming her slew of mental illnesses cold turkey style on her own by facing what are the reasons that causing them!***SPOILERS*** It turns out that besides suffering from a severe case of schizophrenia Virginia's attempt in having relationship with men like her husband Robert is actually a non-starter! This all goes back to Virginia's childhood as well as her first attempt to get married to hometown boyfriend Gordon, Leif Erickson. It was Gordon who got himself killed in a traffic accident back when, startled by what she told him, Virginia changed her mind in marrying him just before the two were to tie the knot! This caused Gordon to lose control of his automobile, as he made a U-turn in a blinding rain storm, and smash into a tractor trailer and end up killing himself with Virginia not only surviving, in fact walking away, from the wreckage but developing deep guilt feeling In her then fiancée's sudden death! The date of Gordon's tragic accident was May 12! The same date that Virginia want's so desperately blot out of her mind!With Dr. Kik's help and her own recognition of her problems Virginia does in fact not only overcome her own mental illness but she also becomes a much better and caring person for those lonely and helpless individuals like herself because of it. In what is by by far the best thing to come out in Virginia's recovery she makes friends with her fellow mental patient the scared and speechless, in not wanting to communicate with the outside world, Hester, Betsy Blair. It was Virginia who went out of her way, despite her own mental problems, in trying to help Hester that in the end borough her out of her self imposed exile from the human race. And it was that more then anything else that gave Virginia the reason to overcome her own mental illness by helping Hester overcome hers!