Trivia / The Snake Pit

• Beauty Inversion: Olivia de Havilland spends most of the film with messy hair, baggy clothes (she personally selected ones that were too big) and eyebrows blotted with powder. She went without a bra and girdle for the hospital scenes, and the other actresses playing patients were forbidden from having their hair done.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Olivia de Havilland went on a diet to look convincingly like an underweight mental patient.
• Enforced Method Acting: The hospital scenes were filmed first, and Olivia de Havilland was given a month's break before shooting the flashbacks - so that there would be a noticeable difference in Virginia between the two timelines.
• Method Acting: The cast and crew had to spend three months visiting mental institutions and attending psychiatric lectures. Olivia de Havilland personally attended treatments for electro shock therapy and hydrotherapy. She also sometimes went to doctor-patient therapy sessions (with permission of course).
• No Export for You: The film almost didn't get released in the UK, because films dealing with insanity were banned. Nursing organisations campaigned to ban the film as well, fearing it would discourage women from wanting to become nurses. Fox ended up cutting some of the more extreme treatment scenes and slapping a disclaimer stating that the cast were actors and the film didn't accurately reflect conditions in British hospitals. It then broke Box Office records in the UK!
• The Red Stapler: Thirteen states were compelled to change their laws regarding the mental health system following the film's release.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Ginger Rogers turned down the role of Virginia. She also turned down another role that Olivia de Havilland played and got an Oscar nomination for - To Each His Own.
  "Olivia knew a good thing when she saw it. Perhaps she should thank me for such poor judgment."
  • More scenes detailing Virginia's recovery were shot and left on the cutting room floor.