Out of True (film)

Last updated

Out of True
Directed by Philip Leacock
Written by Montagu Slater
Produced byFrederick Wilson
Starring Jane Hylton
Muriel Pavlow
Edited byTerry Trench
Music by Elisabeth Lutyens
Distributed by Crown Film Unit
Release date
  • 1951 (1951)
Running time
40 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Out of True is a 1951 British drama-documentary film, directed by Philip Leacock and starring Jane Hylton and Muriel Pavlow. Out of True was made by the Crown Film Unit with sponsorship from the Ministry of Health, and was promoted as a "fictional account of a nervous breakdown which conforms to the pattern of much of the mental illness occurring today". [1] The film received a nomination in the category Best Documentary Film at the 1951 British Academy Film Awards. [2] Its production was motivated, in part, by the U.S. film Snake Pit , which some critics in the UK feared would cast all psychiatric hospitals in a negative light. [3]

Contents

Plot

Molly Slade (Hylton) wakes up feeling extremely depressed. She has run out of tea and goes to the local shop to buy some, but finds the shop still closed. Pushed over the edge by this seemingly trivial inconvenience, she ends up attempting suicide by jumping from a bridge into the river but is saved in time. Husband Arthur (David Evans) comes home from work to find that Molly has been committed to a psychiatric hospital. Molly's treatment involves medication and electroconvulsive therapy. While in hospital she befriends fellow patient Betty (Pavlow) and together they are seen in exercise classes, playing table tennis and receiving occupational therapy. Molly leaves the hospital one night and goes home, but Arthur returns her to the hospital until she has completed her treatment and been officially released. Finally, with her treatment concluded and her mind back on an even keel, Molly is able to return to her family.

Cast

Related Research Articles

<i>The Snake Pit</i> 1948 film by Anatole Litvak

The Snake Pit is a 1948 American psychological drama film directed by Anatole Litvak and starring Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Beulah Bondi, and Lee Patrick. Based on Mary Jane Ward's 1946 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, the film recounts the tale of a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there.

<i>Julia</i> (1977 film) 1977 drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann

Julia is a 1977 American WWII drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann, from a screenplay by Alvin Sargent. It is based on a chapter from Lillian Hellman's 1973 book Pentimento about the author's relationship with a lifelong friend, Julia, who fought against the Nazis in the years prior to World War II. The film stars Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards, Hal Holbrook, Rosemary Murphy, Maximilian Schell, and Meryl Streep in her film debut.

<i>The Three Faces of Eve</i> 1957 film by Nunnally Johnson

The Three Faces of Eve is a 1957 American film noir mystery drama film presented in CinemaScope, based on the book of the same name about the life of Chris Costner Sizemore, which was written by psychiatrists Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley, who also helped write the screenplay. Sizemore, also known as Eve White, was a woman they suggested might have dissociative identity disorder. Sizemore's identity was concealed in interviews about this film and was not revealed to the public until 1977. The film was directed by Nunnally Johnson.

<i>Muriels Wedding</i> 1994 film by P. J. Hogan

Muriel's Wedding is a 1994 Australian comedy-drama film written and directed by P. J. Hogan. The film, which stars Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Jeanie Drynan, Sophie Lee, and Bill Hunter, focuses on the socially awkward Muriel whose ambition is to have a glamorous wedding and improve her personal life by moving from her dead-end hometown, the fictional Porpoise Spit, to Sydney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constance Smith</span> Irish actress (1929–2003)

Constance Smith was an Irish film actress, and contract player of 20th Century Fox in the 1950s.

<i>Doctor in the House</i> (film) 1954 British film

Doctor in the House is a 1954 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas and produced by Betty Box. The screenplay, by Nicholas Phipps, Richard Gordon and Ronald Wilkinson, is based on the 1952 novel by Gordon, and follows a group of students through medical school.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mae Clarke</span> American actress (1910–1992)

Mae Clarke was an American actress. She is widely remembered for playing Henry Frankenstein's bride Elizabeth, who is chased by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, and for being on the receiving end of James Cagney's halved grapefruit in The Public Enemy. Both films were released in 1931.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insulin shock therapy</span> Psychiatric treatment

Insulin shock therapy or insulin coma therapy was a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas over several weeks. It was introduced in 1927 by Austrian-American psychiatrist Manfred Sakel and used extensively in the 1940s and 1950s, mainly for schizophrenia, before falling out of favour and being replaced by neuroleptic drugs in the 1960s.

Deep sleep therapy (DST), also called prolonged sleep treatment or continuous narcosis, is a discredited form of ostensibly psychiatric treatment in which drugs are used to keep patients unconscious for a period of days or weeks. The controversial practice led to the death of 25 patients in Chelmsford Private Hospital in New South Wales, Australia, from the early 1960s to late 1970s.

<i>Murder, She Said</i> 1961 British film

Murder, She said is a 1961 comedy/murder mystery film directed by George Pollock, based on the 1957 novel 4.50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie. The production stars Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, along with Arthur Kennedy, Muriel Pavlow, James Robertson Justice, and Stringer Davis.

<i>Magnificent Obsession</i> (1935 film) 1935 film by John M. Stahl

Magnificent Obsession is a 1935 drama film based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Lloyd C. Douglas. The film was adapted by Sarah Y. Mason, Victor Heerman, and George O'Neil, directed by John M. Stahl, and stars Irene Dunne, Robert Taylor, Charles Butterworth, and Betty Furness.

<i>Horrors of the Black Museum</i> 1959 British film by Arthur Crabtree

Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) is a British-American horror film starring Michael Gough and directed by Arthur Crabtree.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central State Hospital (Indiana)</span> Former psychiatric hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.

Central State Hospital, formerly referred to as the Central Indiana Hospital for the Insane, was a psychiatric treatment hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. The hospital was established in 1848 to treat patients from anywhere in the state, but by 1905, with the establishment of psychiatric hospitals in other parts of Indiana, Central State served only the counties in the middle of the state. In 1950, it had 2,500 patients. Allegations of abuse, funding shortfalls, and the move to less institutional methods of treatment led to its closure in 1994. Since then efforts have been made to redevelop the site for various uses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Austen Riggs Center</span> Psychiatric hospital in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, US

The Austen Riggs Center is a psychiatric treatment facility in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was founded by Austen Fox Riggs in 1913 as the Stockbridge Institute for the Study and Treatment of Psychoneuroses before being renamed in honor of Austen Riggs on July 21, 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muriel Pavlow</span> English actress (1921–2019)

Muriel Lilian Pavlow was an English actress. Her mother was French and her father Russian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muriel Evans</span> American actress (1910–200

Muriel Evans was an American film actress. She is best known for her many appearances in popular westerns of the 1930s for which she won a Golden Boot Award.

<i>Eyewitness</i> (1956 film) 1956 film by Muriel Box

Eyewitness is a 1956 British thriller film directed by Muriel Box and starring Donald Sinden, Muriel Pavlow, Belinda Lee, Michael Craig, Nigel Stock and Richard Wattis. It was made by the Rank Organisation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Hylton</span> British actress (1927–1979)

Jane Hylton was an English actress who accumulated 30 film credits, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, before moving into television work in the latter half of her career in the 1960s and 1970s.

<i>It Started in Paradise</i> 1952 film

It Started in Paradise is a 1952 British drama film directed by Compton Bennett and starring Jane Hylton, Martita Hunt and Muriel Pavlow. Set in the world of haute couture, the film was squarely aimed at female audiences. Its storyline of an established master of her craft being usurped by a younger, ruthlessly ambitious underling, who then years later finds the same thing happening to her – with a waspish male critic on hand throughout to provide a steady stream of acerbic, biting commentary – led inevitably to the film being dubbed the All About Eve of the fashion world.

The Spring Grove Experiment is a series of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) studies performed from 1963 to 1976 on patients with psychotic illnesses at the Spring Grove Clinic in Catonsville, Maryland. These patients were sponsored by a federal agency called the National Institute of Mental Health to be part of the first study conducted on the effects of psychedelic drugs on people with schizophrenia. The Spring Grove Experiments were adapted to study the effect of LSD and psychotherapy on patients including alcoholics, heroin addicts, neurotics, and terminally-ill cancer patients. The research done was largely conducted by the members of the Research Unit of Spring Grove State Hospital. Significant contributors to the experiments included Walter Pahnke, Albert Kurland, Sanford Unger, Richard Yensen, Stanislav Grof, William Richards, Francesco Di Leo, and Oliver Lee McCabe. Later, Spring Grove was rebuilt into the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center where studies continued to be performed for the advancement of psychiatric research. This study on LSD is the largest study on psychedelic drugs to date.

References

  1. Out of True BFI Film & TV Database. Retrieved 05-09-2010
  2. BAFTA Database - 1951 Retrieved 05-09-2010
  3. Wills, Clair (2021, November 18). Life pushed aside. London Review of Books, pp. 21-29.