IMDb RATING
7.6/10
8.4K
YOUR RATING
A detailed chronicle of a woman during her stay in a mental institution.A detailed chronicle of a woman during her stay in a mental institution.A detailed chronicle of a woman during her stay in a mental institution.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 10 wins & 9 nominations total
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThirteen states changed their laws concerning mental health issues after the film's release.
- GoofsAfter the young Virginia smashes the head of the soldier doll (that reminds her of her father) into several pieces, she is later seen carrying the unbroken doll on the night of her father's death. The intact doll again appears in the apartment that she lives in as an adult. However, Virginia most likely received a new doll of the same kind when her father discovered the other one was no longer intact.
- Quotes
Robert Cunningham: Tell me, what have you been doing all these months?
Virginia Stuart Cunningham: Working 18 hours a day and being lonely 24.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Biography: Darryl F. Zanuck: 20th Century Filmmaker (1995)
Featured review
....a ground-breaking film....
Considered brutal and scary in the day of its initial release, "The Snake Pit" was a ground-breaking film with its look into the horrors of a mental institution. Giving the film its vibrancy and life is the elegant Olivia De Havilland. This fine actress goes to town in this fascinating portrait of a young woman, Virginia Stuart, who, soon after marriage to the handsome Robert Cunningham (Mark Stevens) , descends into a world of paranoia and insanity. He takes her to an institution, but conditions there are foreign to Virginia. This Hollywoodization of life in a mental hospital, though tame compared to reality, still packs a punch. We follow this delusional woman as she tries to come to grips with where she is, falls in love with her kind-hearted doctor, Mark Kirk (Leo Genn), befriends other patients, and tries to hide out in the hospital. Celeste Holm has a minor, but welcome role as Grace, a fellow patient who takes a liking to and protects the confused Virginia.
What a score for the lovely De Havilland! She really gets to show her stuff in this emotional role, and got an Oscar-nomination for her efforts. And kudos to director Anatole Litvak for a wonderful, but hard-to-take visit into a woman's not-all-there mind and her institutionalized world.
What a score for the lovely De Havilland! She really gets to show her stuff in this emotional role, and got an Oscar-nomination for her efforts. And kudos to director Anatole Litvak for a wonderful, but hard-to-take visit into a woman's not-all-there mind and her institutionalized world.
helpful•463
- boy-13
- Jul 5, 1999
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Die Schlangengrube
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $10,000,000
- Runtime1 hour 48 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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