The Children's Hour (1961)

This adaptation of a Lillian Hellman play got mixed reviews and did not cover expenses at the box office, but when YouTube suggested it to me, I noticed the high ratings on modern boards. Besides, I was in the mood for an Audrey Hepburn piece, and this one sounded quite different from the same year's Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Karen (Hepburn) and Martha (Shirley MacLaine) run a girls' boarding school. For the first half hour, their struggles include some unruly students; Martha's annoyance at her conceited Aunt Lily (Miriam Hopkins) on staff; Karen dragging her heels about marrying the school's go-to physician, Joe (James Garner); and Martha worrying what will happen to the school when they do marry. But all those troubles get overshadowed when every student suddenly gets pulled out of the school. What rumor could be so ugly that the headmistresses take forever just to hear an explanation?

Only about halfway in do we get a remotely direct answer: The two leading women are believed to be "lovers." Even after that, the dialog keeps dancing around the subject. The rumor begins with Mary (Karen Balkin), a pathological liar and possibly the most ill-behaved prepubescent girl of stage and screen this side of The Bad Seed, who seeks to punish her punishers. Next to her, Martha's response to Lily looks overwrought.

You may have guessed the answer from my inclusion of the LGBT tag. If you're eager to know, there is a kernel of truth in Mary's lie: Martha has feelings for Karen but doesn't consciously act on them.

Impressively progressive for 1961, but I have a feeling a modern remake wouldn't be played out the same way, regardless of when it's set. None of the characters deny that the parents would be right to separate their children from erotically active lesbians if the allegations were true. Martha even feels crushing guilt. The main moral I perceive is that we shouldn't put so much trust in rumors, especially those started by kids. In that sense, it reminds me of The Hunt and, to a lesser extent, Doubt.

Whatever you think about same-sex relationships, you can recognize the unfairness of what Karen and Martha experience. Not only is their business kaput on the say-so of Mary's officious grandma (Fay Bainter), but they rarely dare leave the house and men keep stopping by to leer at them. Even Joe doesn't dismiss the rumor altogether. We don't get a courtroom scene, presumably because the play didn't have one, but we hear that a slander suit fails. They hardly feel any better when the truth comes out.

The pace is always pretty slow, but I didn't really mind. It has a way of enhancing the drama, not least toward the end. Director William Wyler knew what he was doing. All the acting, including by young actresses, works nicely too.

I may be a sucker for tragedies of injustice. See TCH if you feel like I do.