Blu-ray Review The Snake Pit Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

Matt Hough submitted a new blog post

The Snake Pit Blu-ray Review

Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

Thanks so much for the terrific review, Matt! This is one of Olivia's finest performances and I can't wait to add it to my collection.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Thanks for the great review as I'm still waiting on Twilight Time to ship me my copy.

 

[Garysb]

Bought this at the Twilight Time sale and looking forward to seeing it.

 

[Robin9]

This is a very good transfer of a very good film. Olivia De Havilland gave an excellent performance but I now take that for granted because she's always good. (Her reputation has probably been enhanced in recent years by the several Blu-ray discs of her films which enable us to see how skilled and versatile she was) I was impressed by Helen Craig and looked her up on IMDB to see what else she was in. Sadly not much, which explains why I didn't recognise her from previous films.

 

[benbess]

Like others here, I'm a fan of the work of Olivia de Havilland, and having just watched this solid blu-ray I think this is one of her finest roles. The picture quality isn't great, but it's pretty good most of the way. According the RAH the original negative seems to be lost. Anyway, this film has a nuanced portrait of a mental hospital in the late 1940s. Fine direction and a wonderful and sometimes appropriately haunting and moody score by Alfred Newman. According to wikipedia, this film led to some reform:

The Snake Pit - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"In 1949, Herb Stein of Daily Variety wrote "Wisconsin is the seventh state to institute reforms in its mental hospitals as a result of The Snake Pit."[15] Publicity releases from 20th Century Fox claimed that twenty-six of the then forty-eight states had enacted reform legislation because of the movie. This is a very difficult claim to verify because few of the bills introduced, regulations changed or funding increases implemented specifically mentioned The Snake Pit as a motivating factor.[15]

I think there were other waves of reform in the 60s and 70s, but starting in the 80s almost all of these places were closed down, and are now ruins. Photographs of these ruins of these former mental hospitals can be found in several places, including this one....

Photos of Abandoned Psychiatric Hospitals

Photos of abandoned mental hospitals - from modern psychiatric units to ancient decaying asylums.

opacity.us

I like the original poster art.