The Snake Pit

The Snake Pit is a 1948 American drama film directed by Anatole Litvak. The film tells the story of a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there, and stars Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Beulah Bondi, and Lee Patrick. The film was adapted by Millen Brand, Arthur Laurents (uncredited) and Frank Partos from the novel by Mary Jane Ward. Virginia Cunningham (Olivia de Havilland) is an apparently schizophrenic inmate at a mental institution called the Juniper Hill State Hospital. She hears voices and seems so out of touch with reality that she doesn’t recognize her husband Robert (Mark Stevens). Dr. “Kik” (Leo Genn) works with her, and flashbacks show how Virginia and Robert met a few years earlier in Chicago. He worked for a publisher who rejected her writing, and they bumped into each other again in the cafeteria. Occasionally she continued to drop by the cafeteria so they get to know each other. Despite their blossoming...