Long Shot

When Hollywood's Producer-Director Anatole Litvak and Producer Darryl Zanuck gambled on filming The Snake Pit (TIME, Dec. 20), they knew that it might never be shown in Britain--a risk that could make the difference between profit and loss. They took the long shot that the movie would get by the British censorship ban on scenes within insane asylums. Last week, the gamble began to pay off.

For almost three months the British had wrangled over whether the picture should be shown. A critic who saw it in Brussels urged that its exhibition be restricted to such professionals as doctors and magistrates. Published stills stimulated organized squeamishness; 140 London nurses petitioned the board of film censors to keep The Snake Pit off British screens because it showed "mental hospital nurses as harsh, unemotional and often cruel."

The censors sat through five showings to make up their minds, called in psychiatrists, clergymen and social workers, finally insisted on chopping out eight of the film's most harrowing minutes. Cuts: scenes showing Actress Olivia de Havil-land undergoing shock treatment and a mental lapse; a patient drooling food; another in a strait jacket; several scenes of mad behavior that, the censors feared, might touch off hysterical audience laughter.

Finally the board agreed to let the public look at the result, with two conditions: 1) a patriotic foreword must explain that the movie depicts conditions in the U.S., not Britain; 2) children under 16 must be barred from the audience. (Normally, films classified for adults may be seen by children if accompanied by grown-ups.)

British exhibitors shrewdly let the critics see both versions. Last week the censored version opened at London's Odeon and broke all attendance records. From the critics it drew more compliments than quibbles. Sample from the Daily Express: ". . . The finest thing Hollywood has ever done . . . When the end came . . . I was crying." But The Snake Pit's finest tribute came in a censor-dictated line in the British foreword: "Remember--all the characters you see on the screen are played by actors and actresses."

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