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As part of TCM's celebration of Olivia de Havilland's 100th birthday(!), I watched The Snake Pit last night. I thought I had already seen it decades ago, but quickly discovered that I hadn't.
It's essentially the 1948 version of Girl, Interrupted, with a very worthy Oscar-nominated performance from Olivia, who completely commits to being de-glammed and gives a harrowing portrayal of a woman going through a major nervous breakdown. Apparently, the film had a huge impact on the understanding of mental illness among the general public, and its then-shocking portrayal of things like large open wards overstuffed with patients at all levels of difficulty, forced hydrotherapy, and shock treatments led to numerous reforms.
I thought it was excellent, though like all treatments of psychological issues back then (for example, Spellbound), it was quite a bit off base in a lot ways re today's understanding. For example, its assumptions that Olivia's character had to be cured in order to become a good subservient wife to her clueless husband. And you don't see doctor's offices decorated with framed pictures of Freud on the wall anymore. But it remains very worth seeing for Olivia's brave performance and those of a sterling supporting cast, including Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Betsy Blair, Beulah Bondi, Celia Lovsky (later Star Trek's T'Pau!), etc.
I'll keep an eye out for that. Like, "Spellbound" (as you said), "Now, Voyager" and even a bit later "Marne" and, for alcoholism, "The Lost Weekend," and, for anti-semitism, "Gentleman's Agreement," despite the code, despite the seeming desire of the movie establishment to not "rock the boat," gritty movies about real human problems and social issues were being made (in small numbers) and, while many of the attitudes and "solutions" are out of date (as you noted) - these movies were pretty brutal and honest and buck the popular perception that everything "not nice" was being swept under the rug.