1948, USA
This is neither a horror film nor an exploitation film, but it is essential viewing for anyone interested in the subject of mental health on film.
One of the prototypical and taboo-breaking ‘madwoman’ films, Anatole Litvak’s adaptation of the Mary Jane Ward novel stars Olivia de Havilland in an Oscar-nominated turn as Virginia Cunningham, a woman in an asylum who has no recollection as to how or why she got there.
Clearly lost and disoriented, she tries to keep it together, while her interior monologue betrays her suspicion about the staff and other patients.
As her husband and the sympathetic Dr. Kik try to figure out what triggered her psychosis, she is forced to undergo electroshock treatment and is moved through different wards filled with a diverse slate of crazies, shriekers, cacklers, speed-talkers and zombies.
De Havilland purportedly threw herself into the role, visiting many such institutions and even sharing in dinners and social functions as part of her intensive research.
While far from a glamorous take on life inside an asylum – de Havilland looks convincingly greasy throughout – it does make an effort to humanize the patients, the most poignant example being the co-ed dance where a fellow inmate (played by Jan Clayton) performs a tear jerking rendition of ‘Going Home’ (from Dvorak’s New World Symphony) and the entire populace stops in their tracks to sing along.
Various forms of therapy reveal that de Havilland’s character feels responsible for the deaths of both her father and her first boyfriend, who was essentially a substitute for her father.
An early example of Freudian theory at work on film, Dr. Kik concedes that Virginia identifies most men with her father, and relives the trauma of his death whenever she gets too close to anyone.
This tidy Freudian resolution might seem trite now, but it was a powerful example of early pop-psychology given the film’s massive exposure, and helped usher in legislation in many states that saw improvec living conditions in mental hospitals nationwide.
hexafu 