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YMMV / The Snake Pit

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  • Retroactive Recognition: Natalie Schafer, two decades away from playing Mrs. Howell on Gilligan's Island, appears in flashback as Virginia's mother.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: The film is dated to the '40s by its heavy use of Freudian psychology, as Sigmund Freud's theories were then the most prevalent and influential of any psychiatrist in the west. Dr. Kik even has a picture of Freud in his office, which was a fashionable thing for American psychiatrists to do at the time. The fashions and hairstyles, and the fact that cigarettes feature prominetly in the hospital just add to it.
  • Values Resonance: This film was created at a time when mental illness was still treated as an "other" and suffered a heavy social stigma. Yet, it doesn't portray Virginia as violent, frightening, or "permanently damaged" for being schizophrenic. It's just an illness (and a manageable one at that) which she has no control over. This portrayal still resonates with people, even if the treatment the film depicts is outdated.

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