ĭirector Anatole Litvak insisted upon three months of grueling research. With The Snake Pit, Zanuck added mental patients to Jews and the poor as groups left out of the American dream. After buying the rights to The Snake Pit, Litvak sold them to Darryl Zanuck at Twentieth Century Fox, who had produced films with social conscience, most notably The Grapes of Wrath and Gentleman's Agreement. In his contact with men who survived combat, Litvak became interested in the psychiatric treatment of veterans and the plight of the mentally ill. Army and codirected with Frank Capra the Why We Fight films, which Capra produced. When the United States entered the war, Litvak enlisted in the U.S. Most notably, he directed Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939, alerting American audiences to the rise of Hitler. Moving to the United States, Litvak became known as the most prominent director of films with antifascist sentiment. He began his career as a director with films in Berlin, Paris, and London. Litvak was born in Kiev to Lithuanian Jewish parents and learned filmmaking in Leningrad. When the book The Snake Pit was still in galleys, the president of Random House, Bennett Cerf, showed it to his friend Anatole Litvak, who bought the rights. Gene Tierney was the first choice to play Virginia Stuart Cunningham, but was replaced by Olivia de Havilland when Tierney became pregnant.
The film depicts the bureaucratic regimentation of the institution, the staff (some unkind and aloof, some kind and empathetic), and relationships between patients, from which Virginia learns as much as she does in therapy.ĭr. Over time, Virginia gains insight and self-understanding, and is able to leave the hospital. Kik's care continues to improve Virginia's mental state. Kik, learning of this, has Virginia returned to Level One, but away from Nurse Davis's care.ĭespite this setback, Dr. Nurse Davis goads Virginia into an outburst which results in Virginia being straitjacketed and expelled from Level One into the "snake pit", where patients considered beyond help are simply placed together in a large padded cell and abandoned. Kik's interest in Virginia, which she sees as excessive. Virginia moves to the lowest level (One), where she is treated well by a young nurse but is picked on by Nurse Davis, the only truly abusive nurse in the hospital. The mental hospital is organized on a system of wards, with the best functioning patients assigned to the wards with the lowest numbers, which have better furnishings and more relaxed rules for patient behavior. The film shows her progress and what happens to her along the way. Kik wants to get to the "causes of her unconscious rejection." The film includes many flashbacks, including her earlier failed engagement to Gordon as well as childhood issues. Kik puts her through electro-shock treatment and "narcosynthesis". The rest of the film follows her therapy. She cannot sleep and loses touch with reality, as she feels it is November and snaps when Robert corrects her. They marry on May 7, but Virginia acts erratically again. Eventually, Virginia brings up the possibility of marriage. After she provides a flimsy excuse for her absence and departure, they pick up where they left off, though she remains evasive and avoids his desire for marriage. Robert moves to New York and bumps into her again at the Philharmonic. Occasionally she continued to drop by the cafeteria so they got to know each other.ĭespite their blossoming romance, Virginia abruptly leaves town without explanation.
He worked for a publisher who rejected her writing, and they bumped into each other again in the cafeteria. Kik works with her, and flashbacks show how Virginia and Robert met a few years earlier in Chicago. She hears voices and seems so out of touch with reality that she does not recognize her husband Robert.ĭr. Virginia Cunningham is an apparently schizophrenic patient at a mental hospital called the Juniper Hill State Hospital.