Lilith is a film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 written

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 and directed

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 by Robert Rossen

Robert Rossen

Robert Rossen was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer whose film career spanned almost three decades. His 1949 film All the King's Men won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, while Rossen was nominated for an Oscar as Best Director...

. It is based on a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by J. R. Salamanca and stars Warren Beatty

Warren Beatty

Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...

, Jean Seberg

Jean Seberg

Jean Dorothy Seberg was an American actress. She starred in 37 films in Hollywood and in France, including Breathless , the musical Paint Your Wagon and the disaster film Airport ....

, Peter Fonda

Peter Fonda

Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda...

, Kim Hunter

Kim Hunter

Kim Hunter was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire...

 and Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman

Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...

. The movie was filmed at Chestnut Lodge

Chestnut Lodge

Chestnut Lodge was a historic building in Rockville, Maryland, United States, well known as a psychiatric institution. It was a contributing property to the West Montgomery Avenue Historic District.-History:...

 in Rockville, Maryland

Rockville, Maryland

Rockville is the county seat of Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is a major incorporated city in the central part of Montgomery County and forms part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. The 2010 U.S...

.

Plot

Set in a private mental institution, it tells of a trainee occupational therapist Vincent Bruce (Beatty) who becomes dangerously obsessed with a seductive, very able, schizophrenic

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...

 patient Lilith Arthur (Seberg).

After engineering the suicide of another patient (Fonda) out of jealousy for his crush on Lilith, Bruce presents himself for psychiatric help to his superiors.

Chestnut Lodge would not permit filming on location so those scenes were done in a vacant mansion rented by the production company, Centur Productions, on the North Shore of Long Island (Locust Valley). Location shooting in Maryland was done in a private home in Rockville as well as in the downtown area, plus scenes at Great Falls on both the Maryland and Virginia sides of the Potomac River, as well as a staged carnival scene at Barnssville, Maryland.

This was Robert Rossen's last film before he died.

Reputation

In The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is a reference book written by film critic David Thomson and originally published by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd in 1975 under the title "Biographical Dictionary of Cinema." Organized by personality, it's an exhaustive inventory of those involved in...

David Thomson

David Thomson (film critic)

David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.-Career:...

describes Lilith as "an oddity, the only one of [Rossen's] films that seems passionate, mysterious and truly personal. The other films will look increasingly dated and self-contained, but Lilith may grow."