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DVD: Snake Pit, The (1948)
 
       
Review Rating:   Very Good  
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Label/Studio:
20th Century Fox 
 
Catalog #:
2221985
 
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A
Region:
1 (NTSC)
Released:

June 1, 2004

 

 

 
Genre: Drama  
Synopsis:
A woman strives to understand the trauma that's placed her in a mental institution, and regain her sanity for a second chance at life.  

 

 

Directed by:

Anatole Litvak
Screenplay by: Frank Partos,  Millen Brand
Music by: Alfred Newman
Produced by: Anatole Litvak,  Robert Bassler
Cast:

Olivia de Havilland,  Mark Stevens,  Leo Genn,  Celeste Holm,  Glenn Langan,  Helen Craig,  Leif Erickson,  Beulah Bondi,  Lee Patrick,  Howard Freeman,  Natalie Schafer,  Ruth Donnelly

Film Length: 107 mins
Process/Ratio: 1.33 :1
Black & White
Anamorphic DVD: No
Languages:   English (Mono),  English (Pseudo-Stereo),  French (Mono),  Spanish (Mono)
Subtitles:   English,  Spanish
 
Special Features :  

Audio Commentary by Film Historian and Author Aubrey Solomon / Fox Movietone Newsreels: "N.Y. Film Critics Honor Olivia de Havilland" (1:02) + "National Magazines Make Film Awards" (1:00) + "Showmen Honor The Snake Pit" (0:39) + "Special Film Award is Presented for The Snake Pit" (1:17) + "Motion Picture Academy Awards Film Oscars" (0:43) / Still gallery with 46 images / Theatrical trailer for "The Snake Pit" plus trailers for "All About Eve," "An Affair To Remember," "Gentleman's Agreement," "The Song of Bernadette" and "The Three Faces Of Eve"

 
 
Comments :

“The Snake Pit” won an Academy Award for Best Sound, and received Nominations for Best Actress, Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writing.

While 20th Century Fox tackled a number of social issues during the Forties and early Fifties with great critical and audience success, “The Snake Pit” nevertheless owes a measure of gratitude to Alfred Hitchcock's “Spellbound,” in which psychoanalysis and the ‘mysteries of the mind' proved to be an attractive veneer for a standard thriller formula.

Based on the novel by Mary Jane Ward, the filmmakers had arguably a greater need to distance themselves from Hitchcock's psycho tale, and treat the trauma of the mentally ill in a docu-drama format (though symbolic dreams and cryptic imagery still proved to be an irresistible indulgence in “Snake Pit”).

Co-author (with Tony Thomas) of “The Films of Twentieth Century-Fox,” historian Aubrey Solomon does a decent job in providing concise notes on the film's production, cast sketches, and background info on the original novel and deleted scenes from early script drafts, but there's a lot of silent gaps between Solomon's otherwise thoughtful observations. What's needed is a second or third participant to balance the weight of a 107 minute commentary track, yet the film's age reinforces a unique dilemma for commentators in general: with many of the original participants long gone, the historian must partially rely on surviving documents, publicity ephemera, and extractions from published interviews and biographies. Solomon makes a fair effort to quote from surviving studio memos and original reviews, but the regular pauses mandate some remote shuttling on behalf of the viewer.

Being a prestige film that earned Oscar attention and awards from secondary critical groups, a substantial collection of newsreels were gathered for this release, and it's fun to watch de Havilland sport a gracious smile each time she's handed a trophy, plaque, or furled certificate. Sound no longer exists for the newsreel “Showmen Honor The Snake Pit,” while “Special Film Award” has stoic Fox executive Spyros Skouras amusingly emphasizing/name dropping director Litvak and studio uber-CEO Darryl F. Zanuck for their “courageous” decision to realize the film.

Though produced in 1948, “The Snake Pit” remains an engaging drama, and a unique time capsule of primitive, and sometimes brutal treatments of the mentally infirm.

 

© 2004 Mark R. Hasan

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