NOTE: The following review is based on the full-length American version. The skilfully re-cut Australian version is a much better picture.
COMMENT: Olivia De Havilland's performance is faulty and too obviously contrived, though she does seem real enough most of the time, unlike young Lora Lee Michel who convinces none of the time. Mark Stevens is none too solid in support and Leo Genn is too conventionally re-assuring. Fortunately Stevens' role is small but Genn's is large and his too-pat doctor is unconvincing enough to seriously fault the film as a whole. Celeste Holm has a funny role. She disappears from the film without explanation. Some of the patients are too much like caricatures to be believable. There is an obvious straining after effects in the acting, in the too-contrived script, too much weight on boring or unconvincing or stagily written, delivered and directed dialogue (note the scene in which all the kinky patients get a chance to display their particular brand of lunacy individually, each giving a turn one after the other like so many vaudeville acts). Contrivances in the plot ensure that the heroine gets a chance to sample all the wards, patients, nurses, doctors and treatments. These twists were probably not so obvious in the original novel but the mechanics are very patent in the film. Still director Litvak and his photographer and the art directors are at their best in the broad effects. The De H. story is too weighed down by her unsympathetic character, the too great a weight on dialogue, the clichés, and the director's penchant for unflattering (De H.) or too flattering close-ups (Genn). The main plot just isn't interesting enough because the De H. character herself isn't interesting or sympathetic enough. Oddly, the fact that she is so unglamorous weighs against her! If the doctors had been less cliched, the script might have got away with it, but as it is, the formula is not right. The film as a whole does not succeed, despite the power and the impact of many sequences. Litvak is at his best with groups, using effective crane and dolly shots, but otherwise the handling tends to look like superior TV.
COMMENT: Olivia De Havilland's performance is faulty and too obviously contrived, though she does seem real enough most of the time, unlike young Lora Lee Michel who convinces none of the time. Mark Stevens is none too solid in support and Leo Genn is too conventionally re-assuring. Fortunately Stevens' role is small but Genn's is large and his too-pat doctor is unconvincing enough to seriously fault the film as a whole. Celeste Holm has a funny role. She disappears from the film without explanation. Some of the patients are too much like caricatures to be believable. There is an obvious straining after effects in the acting, in the too-contrived script, too much weight on boring or unconvincing or stagily written, delivered and directed dialogue (note the scene in which all the kinky patients get a chance to display their particular brand of lunacy individually, each giving a turn one after the other like so many vaudeville acts). Contrivances in the plot ensure that the heroine gets a chance to sample all the wards, patients, nurses, doctors and treatments. These twists were probably not so obvious in the original novel but the mechanics are very patent in the film. Still director Litvak and his photographer and the art directors are at their best in the broad effects. The De H. story is too weighed down by her unsympathetic character, the too great a weight on dialogue, the clichés, and the director's penchant for unflattering (De H.) or too flattering close-ups (Genn). The main plot just isn't interesting enough because the De H. character herself isn't interesting or sympathetic enough. Oddly, the fact that she is so unglamorous weighs against her! If the doctors had been less cliched, the script might have got away with it, but as it is, the formula is not right. The film as a whole does not succeed, despite the power and the impact of many sequences. Litvak is at his best with groups, using effective crane and dolly shots, but otherwise the handling tends to look like superior TV.