Rent The Snake Pit (1948)

Psychological Vérité - The Snake Pit review by Steve

During the opening scenes it feels like this may be a gritty exposé of the incapacity of US healthcare; a sort of Hollywood neorealism. But then it wanders off into melodrama, and its portrayal of a psychiatric hospital failing due to lack of funds and facilities becomes secondary to the lead character's psychosis.

Still, as melodrama, it is very effective. Olivia de Havilland is a married, middle class schizophrenic who gets snagged in the net of American public health, which is portrayed as extraordinarily incompetent. Her only hope of getting better rests with a handsome pipe smoking psychiatrist, played by Leo Genn.

Early on, there is plenty of soap box editorialising, but the story eventually becomes so conventional that by the end, all the residents are singing Goin' Home together led by a Broadway standard vocal from one of the patients. Olivia is deglamourised,  but it is still quite a photogenic breakdown.  

It's a sensitive and well-meaning film, which uses expressionism to suggest the woman's hallucinatory state. De Havilland gives one of her great performances of the postwar era when she was among the best dramatic actors in Hollywood. There is an attempt to be naturalistic and unromantic but this was made in the studio system and it proved impossible at this time.