TheRetroCritic

Have you ever wondered why Dana Carvey, that other guy from the Wayne's World movies, never made it big in the movies after that, like Mike Myers? Have you seen The Master of Disguise? No? Well, that figures then. So you've got a main character called Pistachio Disguisey...yup I think Carvey's pitch should have been over right there and then but somehow producers looked past that (Adam Sandler being one of them) and gave the go ahead. So here we have a spy movie spoof in which Carvey basically goes through his repertoire of bad impressions and improvises in every scene until even the other actors look at him with a wtf expression on their faces. Don't get me wrong, I like Carvey, and I actually enjoyed some of his idiotic jokes but on the whole this is pretty darn awful from start to finish. Directed as if it were a CBBC show for 5 year olds, written as if it hadn't actually been written, acted awkwardly by everyone, not even a ridiculous turtle

Olivia de Havilland loses it and we sit and watch as she attempts to regain some shred of her sanity and hopefully leave her confinement to be reunited with her husband. The reasons behind her nervous breakdown are revealed little by little and although the feel of the film is, at times, very Hitchcockian, the way the subject-matter is handled makes Spellbound look like a 5 year-old child's perception of psychoanalysis rather than a legitimate take on it. De Havilland's performance in this is one of the most complex, unpredictable and powerful I've seen in a long time and, again, makes Gregory Peck's performance in Spellbound look even poorer than it already is in comparison. She earned a well deserved Oscar nomination and so did the film. The Snake Pit is very dark and doesn't sugar-coat much, with some scenes actually quite hard to watch and pretty daring for 1948. As larger than life as some of the characters may be, this is far more subtle and honest than,