Olivia de Havilland enters “The Snake Pit”

The Snake Pit (1948) stars two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland.

De Havilland is Virginia Cunningham, an aspiring writer and newlywed. Early in their marriage, she begins to wonder about her husband’s love for her. She becomes confused and disorientated, necessitating her commitment to a state mental institution. Her experiences in the institution are harrowing. The movie had a profound impact on the public, and many states reevaluated and changed their treatment of mental patients.

De Havilland heads an impressive cast that also includes Leo Genn as a sympathetic psychiatrist and Mark Stevens as her long-suffering husband. The cast is populated by some of the best-known character actresses of the era, including Beulah Bondi, Ruth Donnelly, and Natalie Schafer. The Snake Pit was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (de Havilland), and Best Director (Anatole Litvak).

The movie is based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Mary Jane Ward. Ward had a nervous breakdown and spent eight months at Rockland State Hospital in Orangeburg, New York. During her care, she was subjected to scalding baths and electroshock therapy, similar to what the Virginia Cunningham character experiences in the film.

Backstory
Director Litvak demanded that all the character actresses in the film be seasoned professionals. He wanted to be sure they could stand up to a talent like de Havilland. There are dozens of recognizable faces in The Snake Pit, making it a classic movie buff’s delight.

Celeste Holm (left) and Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit

Anatol Litvak (1902 – 1974) was a Russian-American film director. He got his start in film in Germany, but as Hitler rose to power, he moved to France and worked in the film industry there. Seeing that the rise of the Nazis wasn’t going to work in his favor, he emigrated to the United States. He had an early success with Mayerling  (1936), leading to a contract to direct at Warner Brothers. There he worked with the studio’s top stars, including Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Paul Muni, Ida Lupino, Charles Boyer, Ann Sheridan, James Cagney, and John Garfield. Some of Livak’s films include Tovarich (1937), The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), Castle on the Hudson (1940), City for Conquest (1940), and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948).

Olivia de Havilland (1916 – 2020) was a British-American actress and two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner. De Havilland’s career spanned more than five decades. She was one of the leading actresses of the 1940s and was the last major surviving star from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Some of de Havilland’s classic films include The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Gone with the Wind (1939), Hold Back the Dawn (1941), To Each His Own (1946), The Snake Pit (1948), and The Heiress (1949).

Click HERE to watch the film at the Internet Archive.

Click HERE to join the online discussion on April 21, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. Central Time. Once you RSVP, you will receive an email with a link to join the discussion on Zoom.

The Snake Pit trivia

• Thirteen states amended their laws concerning mental health institutions.
• The book on which the movie was based by Mary Jane Ward was a runaway bestseller.
• Antatole Litvak and Olivia de Havilland visited several mental institutions for three months prior to filming.
• De Havilland won the New York Film Critics award in a unanimous decision. It was the first and only time this has happened.
• Ginger Rogers and Ingrid Bergman supposedly turned down the role of Virginia. Olivia de Havilland was producer Daryl F. Zanuck’s first choice for the role.

Discussion questions

• What did you think of Olivia de Havilland’s performance? Was she convincing and worthy of her Best Actress nomination?
• The supporting cast is uniformly excellent. Did any one performer stand out to you?
• Mark Stevens played de Havilland’s husband; what did you think of his performance?
• British actor Leo Genn played Dr. Kik. Was his performance believable?
• Was there a scene that was especially impactful to you?
• Did anything about the film surprise you?

10 Things You May Not Know About Olivia de Havilland

Olivia de Havilland (1916 – 2020) was a two-time Academy Award Winner for Best Actress. She was the last remaining major movie star from Hollywood’s Golden Age when she passed away at her home in Paris, France, at 104.

1. De Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan. Her father was an English professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo City at the time of her birth. Her parents were both citizens of the United Kingdom so she became an automatic citizen.

De Havilland as Alice in the Saratoga Community Players production
of Alice in Wonderland in 1933

2. She took ballet lessons at four and piano lessons at five and could read before she was six.

3. De Havilland originally planned on becoming a schoolteacher, focusing on English and speech; she received a scholarship to Mills College in Oakland, CA for this pursuit.

4. She was reluctant to become a film actress but was convinced by director Max Reinhardt (who in some respect discovered her) and producer Henry Blake to sign a contract in 1934 with Warner Bros. Her starting salary was $200 a week, an amazing sum for an 18-year-old actress.

Two perfect profiles: Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn in Captain Blood

5. At age nineteen, de Havilland starred opposite another newcomer, Errol Flynn in Captain Blood, released in 1935. The pairing of the two stars was so popular with the public that they made a total of eight films together.

6. De Havilland was cast as Maid Marian opposite Errol Flynn in the Technicolor classic The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). It was one of the most popular adventure films of the late 1930s.

Hattie McDaniel, (Mammy), de Havilland (Melanie), and Vivien Leigh (Scarlett) in

Gone with the Wind

7. She managed to convince Warner Bros Studio head Jack Warner (with the help of his wife) to be loaned to David O. Selznick to play Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939). She would receive the first of five Academy Award nominations for her role. The New York Times wrote as Melanie de Havilland’s performance “is a gracious, dignified, tender gem of characterization.”

8. In 1943 she sued Warner Bros. after her contract was up but the studio contended that she owed them an additional six months for the times she had been suspended for turning down certain roles. She won her case (known today as the De Havilland Law) but Warner Bros. blacklisted de Havilland which resulted in her not working for almost two years.

De Havilland (center) played a patient in a state mental hospital in The Snake Pit (1948)

9. In 1945, de Havilland began filming To Each His Own. She played an unwed mother who gives her child up for adoption. In the film, she ages almost 30 years. She won her first Best Actress Oscar for her performance, marking a remarkable comeback.

De Havilland and Yvette Mieux in Light in the Piazza (1962)

10. She was appointed a Chevaliler of the Legion d’honneur, the highest decoration in France in 2010 by President Nicolas Sarkozy, and was appointed Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 2017 by Queen Elizabeth II.

Olivia de Havilland dead at 104

As Maid Marion in The Adventures of Robin Hood

Olivia de Havilland, winner of two Best Actress Academy Awards and the last remaining star of Gone with the Wind (1939) has died. She passed away in her sleep on July 25, 2020.

De Havilland was one of the last links to Hollywood’s Golden Age, having starred in so many classic films. Ironically, it was her lawsuit against Warner Brothers that helped bring down the studio system. She sued the studio for adding six months to her seven-year contract and won. Her court victory was known as the “de Havilland decision.” She was blackballed for a time by all the major studios, but she fought back and eventually reached heights few actresses ever attain.

In 1945, de Havilland signed a two-picture deal with Paramount. Her first film for that studio was The Well Groomed Bride co-starring Ray Milland, but it would her second Paramount release that would launch her career to the next level. As an unwed mother who gives up her child for adoption in Michell Leisen’s To Each His Own (1946), she won her first Best Actress Academy Award. Better roles continued with Robert Siodmak’s The Dark Mirror (1946) where she played identical twins—one good, the other a psychotic killer. One of her best roles was as Virginia Cunningham in Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit (1948). The film dealt with the treatment of patients suffering from mental illness under severe conditions at a state-run mental institution. The film’s success helped bring about many changes in mental hospitals.

William Wyler tapped de Havilland for the lead in The Heiress (1949). The movie was based on the Henry James novel Washington Square. For her performance, she won the New York Film Critics Award, the Golden Globe, and the Academy Award for Best Actress. Now a two-time Oscar winner, de Havilland’s services were in demand by top directors and studios. Elia Kazan wanted her for the role of Blache DuBois in his film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1950), but she turned it down. Her Gone with the Wind co-star Vivien Leigh ended up playing Blanche, winning her second Best Actress Oscar in the process. Besides her work on the screen, de Havilland appeared on Broadway in Romeo and Juliet and Candida, taking the latter on the road.

Celeste Holm (left) and Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit

During the 1950s, de Havilland starred in Not as a Stranger (1955), receiving top-billing over Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra, The Ambassador’s Daughter (1956), and The Proud Rebel (1958). The Proud Rebel, directed by Michael Curtiz co-starred Alan Ladd who would become a lifelong friend. The Ladd family and the de Havilland family remain close to this day. In 1962 she starred in Guy Green’s Light in the Piazza. The film co-starred Rossano Brazzi with Yvette Mimiuex playing de Havilland’s mentally disabled daughter. That same year she starred on Broadway with Henry Fonda in A Gift of Time. The play brought some of the best reviews of her career. The New York World Telegram and Sun said of her performance, “It is Miss de Havilland who gives the play its unbroken continuity. This distinguished actress reveals Lael as a special and admirable woman.” Also that year-a busy one—she published her first book, Every Frenchman Has One about her attempts to adapt to living in France; it became a bestseller.

Olivia de Havilland (left) with Yvette Mimiuex in Light in the Piazza

Her movie career slowed down in the 1960s although she would appear—somewhat reluctantly—in the box office hit Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte with fellow Warner Brothers alum Bette Davis. De Havilland replaced Joan Crawford, at Davis’s request when Crawford dropped out of the film. During the 1970s, she still appeared in films, but she also appeared on television in a variety of productions including Roots: The Next Generations (1979) playing the wife of a former Confederate officer played by Henry Fonda. She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film in 1986 for Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna.

This brief obituary of de Havilland is only a small slice of her talent and impact on Hollywood during its most creative period. Thankfully we have her tremendous body of work which will live on for generations to come.

Olivia de Havilland is 103 Today!

Let that sink in for a while.

There are few living legends among us these days, but de Havilland certainly qualifies. One of the truly great movie stars from Hollywood’s classical period, she was a contemporary of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn, and of course her late younger sister, Joan Fontaine.

Olivia de Havilland (center) in The Snake Pit (1948)

A two-time Oscar winner for To Each His Own and The Heiress respectively. She also gave magical performances in The Snake Pit and The Dark Mirror. And who could forget her as Melanie Hamilton in the all-time classic Gone With The Wind. In the hands of a lesser actress Melanie would have been nothing more than a “mealy mouth ninny,” as Scarlet described her. In the hands of de Havilland, she’s a three-dimensional woman of great warmth and sincerity.

Bravo, Olivia!

Screening of “The Snake Pit” at Daystar Center September 12

“Classic Movie Man Favorites” Series: The Snake Pit (1948)
Where: Daystar Center, 1550 S. State Street
When: September 12, 2017
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Hosted by Stephen Reginald

The Snake Pit (1948) stars two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland, who turned 101 on July 1st!

De Havilland is Virginia Cunningham, an aspiring writer and newlywed. Early in their marriage, she begins to wonder about her husband’s love for her. She becomes confused and disorientated, necessitating her commitment to a state mental institution. Her experiences in the institution are harrowing. The movie had such an impact on the public that many states reevaluated and changed their treatment of mental patients.

De Havilland heads an impressive cast that also includes Leo Genn as a sympathetic psychiatrist and Mark Stevens as her long-suffering husband. The cast is populated by some of the best-known character actresses of the era, including Beulah Bondi, Ruth Donnelly, and Natalie Schafer. The Snake Pit was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (de Havilland), and Best Director (Anatole Litvak).

The movie is based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Mary Jane Ward. Ward had a nervous breakdown and spent eight months at Rockland State Hospital in Orangeburg, New York. During her care, she was subjected to scalding baths and electroshock therapy, similar to what the Virginia Cunningham character experiences in the film.

Backstory
Director Litvak made sure that all the character actresses in the film were seasoned professionals. He wanted to make sure that they could stand up to a talent like de Havilland. There are dozens of recognizable faces in The Snake Pit, making it a classic movie buff’s delight.

This is part of the “Classic Movie Man Favorites” series.

Celeste Holm and Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit

Have some Joe and Enjoy the Show!

You can bring food and beverages into the auditorium; we even have small tables set up next to some of the seats. General Admission: $5 Students and Senior Citizens: $3.

Join the Chicago Film club; join the discussion

Twice a month we screen classic films and have a brief discussion afterward. For more information, including how to join (it’s free), click here. The Venue 1550 is easily accessible by the CTA. Please visit Transit Chicago for more information on transportation options.

Stephen Reginald is a freelance writer and editor. He has worked at various positions within the publishing industry for over 25 years. Most recently he was executive editor for McGraw-Hill’s The Learning Group Division. A long-time amateur student of film, Reginald hosts “Chicago Film Club,” a monthly movie event held in the South Loop, for the past two years. Reginald has also taught several adult education film classes at Facets Film School, Chicago.

Happy 101st birthday to Olivia de Havilland!

Today is Olivia de Havilland’s 101st birthday. The screen legend is the only surviving major cast member of the Civil War classic Gone With the Wind (1939). She’s also the most famous surviving actress from Hollywood’s Golden Age, outliving her younger sister, Joan Fontaine who passed away in 2013 at 96.

Olivia de Havilland in perhaps her most famous role as Melanie Hamilton
in Gone With the Wind

De Havilland is a two-time Oscar winner for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). Her first Oscar nomination was for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Melanie Hamilton in Gone With the Wind. She received two other Best Actress nominations for Hold Back the Dawn (1941), famously losing to her sister, and The Snake Pit (1948). For The Snake Pit she won the National Board of Review Award and New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. The Snake Pit exposed the poor conditions in state mental institutions. It had such an impact on audiences in 1948 that many states adopted new rules and regulations regarding the treatment of mental patients in state-run institutions.

De Havilland and her attorneys recently announced that they are suing FX and producer Ryan Murphy “over unauthorized use of her [de Havilland’s] identity in Feud: Bette and Joan.” De Havilland sued Warner Bros. in 1943 over the studio practice of adding the time an actor spent on suspension to his/her long-term contract. Her suit helped end the power and control of the major Hollywood studios which led to their decline.

De Havilland’s first film role was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). Her last big screen appearance was in The Fifth Musketeer (1979). In between there were some great movies and performances. Below is a list of some of the best.

Captain Blood (1935) – her first pairing with Errol Flynn
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) – another pairing with Flynn (their third) in glorious Technicolor

Dodge City (1939) – her fifth picture with Flynn, also starring Ann Sheridan; one of the earliest Technicolor westerns
Gone With the Wind (1939) – her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress; she lost to costar Hattie McDaniel
Santa Fe Trail (1940)) – one of the top films of the year and another pairing with Flynn
They Died with Their Boots On (1941) – the final pairing of de Havilland with Flynn
The Strawberry Blonde (1941) – a great screen pairing with James Cagney and an up-and-coming Rita Hayworth
Hold Back the Dawn (1941) – on loan to Paramount, she was nominated for Best Actress under the direction of Mitchell Leisen; she lost to her sister Joan Fontaine for her work in Suspicion (1941)

Charles Boyer and de Havilland in Hold Back the Dawn

The Male Animal (1942) – good comedy role based on the James Thurber Broadway hit co-starring Henry Fonda
Princess O’Rourke (1943) – delightful comedy that was a forerunner to Roman Holiday (1953)
To Each His Own (1946) – her first Best Actress Oscar win, once again she was under the direction of Mitchell Leisen
The Dark Mirror (1946) – interesting dual role for de Havilland, playing identical twin sisters, one good one bad
The Snake Pit (1948) – an amazing performance of a woman suffering from mental illness

The Heiress (1949) – de Havilland goes from meak and mild to cold and ruthless in this classic based on Henry James’s Washington Square
My Cousin Rachel (1952) – notable as Richard Burton’s film debut, but it features a finely shaded performance from de Havilland as the mysterious Rachel
The Proud Rebel (1958) – one of my favorite de Havilland performances; she plays a tough woman rancher who befriends a man and his handicapped son

de Havilland with David Ladd, Alan Ladd

Light in the Piazza (1962) – beautifully photographed melodrama set in Rome
Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) – interesting film for the pairing of de Havilland with old friend Bette Davis