THE CHILDREN'S HOUR 1961 lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-childrens-hour-1961.html
*Spoiler alert. This essay gives away key plot points Similar to the manner in which Warner Bros. cartoon character Elmer Fudd seems compelled to use words teeming with the very Ls and Rs he's unable to pronounce (his Owivia DeHaviwand being a particular favorite); Hollywood during the Production Code era (19341968) just couldn’t keep away from “adult”-themed projects it had no reasonable hope of adequately interpreting. Dramatist and screenwriter Lillian Hellman had her first major theatrical success in 1934 with the banned-in-Boston stage hit The Children’s Hour: a shocking-for-its-time play in which the two headmistresses of a tony girls’ boarding school have their careers and lives ruined by the spread of the malicious rumor that the pair are in fact illicit lovers in a lesbian relationship. When William Wyler first adapted Hellman's play for the screen in 1936, the show's scandalous reputation was such that not only was a title change mandated (The Children’s Hour became These Three), but "the lie with the ounce of truth" was changed from the whisper of lesbianism to the more socially palatable rumor of heteronormative adultery. Instead of an accusation of being in love with each other, the two women were now accused of (yawn) being in love with the same man. And lest one think this a Hollywood cop-out of the highest order, know that it was Lillian Hellman herself who approved and adapted the screenplay of the 1936 version for the screen. Hellman's almost word-for-word-faithful adaptation of her play for Wyler confirmed her oftrepeated claim that The Children’s Hour was not really about lesbianism so much as the pernicious power of a lie. "The bigger the lie, the better," Hellman affirmed. A point of view she would gain a great deal of first-hand experience with when, in 1952 she was blacklisted in
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Hollywood for refusing to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee; and later in 1979, charged with falsifying the details of her memoir, Pentimento. (Author Mary McCarthy [The Group] on Hellman: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'!")
Mademoiselle de Maupin by Theophile Gautier A salacious seed is planted when the schoolgirls read the scandalous 1834 French novel in which a woman disguises herself as a man and has affairs with both sexes
In 1960, in an effort to rectify the compromises he felt imposed upon him by MGM and the Hays Code in 1936, William Wyler returned to The Children's Hour vowing to make a more faithful version of the play. Taking advantage of the permissive atmosphere of the times, Wyler even went so far as to say he’d be willing to release his film without the MPAA seal of approval if need be. (Many newspapers at the time refused to carry ads for films lacking the Production Code seal. Similarly, many theaters wouldn’t exhibit non-approved films.) Whether it was Wyler’s pronouncement that his remake was to be “A clean film with a highly moral story!”,or the casting of ladylike Audrey Hepburn as the fem half of the whispered-about duo (Wyler:“We don’t want bosoms in this!”), but studio heads relented and The Children’s Hour was green-lit for production. Provided, of course, that the word “lesbian” never be uttered, and that there be no demonstrative sexual contact of any sort. Yep, certainly sounds like those 1936 compromises were put to rest by 1961.
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Audrey Hepburn as Karen Wright
Shirley MacLaine as Martha Dobie
James Garner as Joe Cardin
Fay Bainter as Amelia Tilford
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Miriam Hopkins as Lily Mortar
Coy as it seems today, The Children’s Hour was written at a time when it was illegal to even make mention of homosexuality in a Broadway play. The show’s ultimate success somehow surmounted public moral outrage, allowing for it to become one of the first Broadway plays to feature a homosexual character. Similar honors went to Wyler’s 1961 film adaptation, with Shirley MacLaine being one of the first major stars to play a gay character in a motion picture; albeit just barely. Change was obviously in the air in the early '60s, as several other homosexual-themed films arrived in theaters within months of The Children’s Hour’s release: Dirk Bogarde’s Victim, Otto Preminger’s Advise & Consent, and Tony Richardson's A Taste of Honey with Brit fave Murray Melvin making his film debut as a gay teen.
The Hateful Eight...er, 12-year-old Making her film debut, Karen Balkin as Mary Tilford
Karen Wright (Hepburn) and Martha Dobie (MacLaine) are two college chums now partnered in the ownership and operation of a girls’ boarding school. After years of struggle, the school, catering to the adolescent daughters of well-to-do families, appears at last to be up on its feet. So much so that Karen, engaged for the last two years to local doctor Joe Cardin (Garner), at last feels free to marry. A decision which doesn’t set well with Martha, who outwardly 4/14
expresses her displeasure as simply the fear that marriage and motherhood will lead to Karen’s abandonment of the school. The pair’s heated discussions and platonic entreaties of love and loyalty on the topic are overheard and misinterpreted by Mary Tilford (Bakin), a troublemaking student whose compulsive lying and disobedience has made her the frequent object of discipline. In spiteful retaliation for one such upbraiding, Mary tells her grandmother (Bainter) that Miss Wright and Miss Dobie are lovers, and that she has seen them kissing and engaging in all manner of nocturnal hanky panky. Before long, the lie concocted merely to avoid the consequences of a rule infraction, mushrooms into a scandal which closes the school and makes a shamble of the lives of three innocent people.
These Three
Given the director, it comes as no surprise that The Children’s Hour is a handsome, wellcrafted and finely-acted film of almost irresistible watchability (like All About Eve, The Children’s Hour is one of those movies impossible to channel surf past, no matter how far along into the story I catch it). I don't know if there is such a thing as a "William Wyler movie," as he has always struck me as one of those industry professionals devoid of an identifiable style, yet noted for consistently quality work. All I know is William Wyler movies occupy a lot of space on my DVD shelves: Roman Holiday, The Heiress, The Little Foxes, Funny Girl, The Letter, and of course, The Children’s Hour; a film whose every frame supports his reputation for vivid storytelling and extracting superior performances from his cast. The Children's Hour was the no-win recipient of five Academy Award nominations (supporting actress, cinematography, costume, art direction, sound).
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Children Will Listen
For all its technical distinction (the lighting, editing, and shot compositions are really something to be applauded) and the high-drama content of its plot (as stated, the film is compellingly watchable), it's still difficult for me not to feel as though The Children's Hour suffers a bit from Wyler's very obvious efforts to deliver a “clean” and “highly moral” film about a sensational subject. In his well-intentioned desire to grant the story the solemnity and respect I'm sure he felt was its due; Wyler falls prey to adopting a tone of such unyielding good taste and decorum that it feels at times almost airless. The result is that The Children’s Hour vacillates between stagy soap opera and melodrama precisely during the moments calling for the raw intimacy of a genuine display of emotion. At these times The Children’s Hour reminds me of the character Mary Tyler Moore played in Ordinary People - it becomes a film determined not to draw attention to itself by making a scene.
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Veronica Cartwright as Rosalie Wells One of the best criers in the business
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM “It is incredible that educated people living in an urban American community today would react as violently and cruelly to a questionable innuendo as they are made to do in this film.” - Bosley Crowther's New York Times review of The Children’s Hour March, 1962 Obviously, movie critic Bosley Crowther needed to get out more. In the face of homophobia and bigotry, incredulity like Crowther’s is deceptive in that it has the surface appearance of giving people credit for being more civilized and intelligent than a film like this would suggest. But in reality, to ignore the fact that lives are ruined every day in America by the very same rootless bigotry and baseless homophobia The Children’s Hour dramatizes, is merely a privileged means of refuting and denying the suffering that is the day-to-day reality for many homosexuals even today. One of the contributing factors to my not having even seen The Children’s Hour until recently is because most everything I’d read about the film in past years corroborated Mr. Crowther’s position. I avoided The Children’s Hour because I assumed it was going to be another dated Hollywood exercise in homosexual self-loathing masked as liberal discourse. When I finally did see the film, I was happily surprised at how dated the surface trappings were, but how timeless the message. Remove the old-fashioned acting, starchy language, and 7/14
that '60s censorship straitjacket (à la Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) necessitating characters verbally dance all around an issue without ever saying it plainly; and you’ve got a story that could happen today. Trade the boarding school for a Boy Scout troop – substitute Muslim for homosexuality…the particulars of theme (ignorance is deaf to truth) and what Lillian Hellman sought to convey remains (sadly) contemporary and unchanged.
Careless Whisper In this her last film, Fay Bainter garnered The Children's Hour's sole acting Oscar nomination, and deservedly so. She's a forceful and dynamic presence in every scene. In the role that won Bonita Granville an Oscar nomination in 1936's These Three, Karen Balkin (who sometimes bears an unfortunate resemblance to Charles Laughton) gives an outsized performance that wouldn't be out of place in a comedy like The Trouble With Angels. Still, I wouldn't say she's exactly ineffective in the role, as by the third act you're apt to find the character she plays loathsome in the extreme. She makes The Bad Seed's Rhoda Penmark look like Shirley Temple
If The Children’s Hour has a credibility problem at all, it lies not in its depiction of the swiftness with which the community condemns the women on baseless innuendo (these days, inciting the public to overreact to unsubstantiated hate-mongering has practically become an official GOP political platform); but in anybody not being able to see through little Mary’s broad-as-abarn-door lying and bullying tactics. Barring this, I think The Children’s Hour presents one of the screen’s more accurate and cutting indictments of hysterical bigotry.
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The ever-likable James Garner is solid as always, but isn't called upon to do much more than stand around looking all heterosexual and stuff
PERFORMANCES I have no idea how 1961 audiences responded to Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine appearing in this “daring” film, but these days when a straight actor takes on a gay role, the public practically awards them a medal of bravery. Everyone, gay and straight alike, carries on as though the actor had just crawled through the foxholes of war-torn Iwo Jima with an orphan on their back. Nevertheless, back in 1961 it was no doubt a big deal for two such high-profile stars to appear in a film with a lesbian theme. But (not to diminish the risk-taking of either actress), Hepburn had just played a prostitute--or Hollywood’s idea of a prostitute--in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and was eager to shed her ingénue image, while MacLaine had a bohemian “kook” reputation (yes, even as far back as that) which lent itself to character roles (aka, women outside the mainstream). And politically speaking, it certainly didn’t hurt that both women were at the time married with children. One source I read speculated on the unlikely chance of an unmarried actress at the time taking on either role.
Audrey Hepburn, who got her start and an Academy Award in Wyler’s Roman Holiday (1953), is an enduring favorite of mine and her performance here, while not particularly showy, is one of the strongest of her early career. Clearly cast (at least in part) for her lack of an overtly sexual screen persona and for having an image which adhered to traditional notions of femininity; one can only imagine how provocative The Children's Hour would have been (something Wyler wasn't interested in, it seems) had she been cast in MacLaine’s role. Miriam Hopkins, who actually did play the MacLaine role in These Three opposite Merle Oberon and Joel McCrea, is a hammy delight as Martha's affected, self-dramatizing aunt.
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Playing an overly-theatrical B-level stage actress, Miriam Hopkins is seen here clutching the mementos of her career. In this instance a glamour portrait which is actually a publicity pic of Hopkins from the 1936 film, Becky Sharp.
As someone commented in an earlier post for the movie Hot Spell, Shirley MacLaine can come off a little shrill in scenes requiring displays of anxiety or excitability. But like many gifted comic actors, she can really deliver the dramatic goods when playing hostility and pique. In a film which codifies lesbianism as simply an absence of glamour, MacLaine is really very good and (this is where the film in its own small way is rather progressive) and grants her sympathetic character a depth and humanity refreshingly devoid of caricature. She resorts to no gimmicks or tricks to signify Martha's latent homosexuality, playing the role honestly and without artifice. In recent interviews about The Children’s Hour, MacLaine likes to relate how Wyler got cold feet during the making of the film, resulting in several non-explicit scenes of Martha showing her affection for Karen (brushing Hepburn’s hair, ironing her clothes, and cooking) ending up on the cutting room floor.
I’m not altogether sure how the inclusion those sequences would have helped a film whose big dramatic payoff is an 11th hour “self-realization” scene (which for my money MacLaine pulls off very well in spite of it being a tad overwritten). Besides, such demonstrativeness to me would appear redundant given how well she already successfully conveys her deep love for 10/14
Hepburn’s character through a dozen subtle looks and gestures.
THE STUFF OF DREAMS The Children’s Hour has always been controversial for the part it played in kickstarting the tired movie trope of the doomed/suicidal homosexual: a worn cliché born of warped morality and show business savvy. In most cases, the introduction of gay characters in films tended to be either for sensation or a glib, short-cut bid towards demonstrating sophistication. From the start, studios and censors gleaned that the death of a gay character in the final reel not only satisfied the movie mandate requiring “sinners” pay for their transgressions, but presented, at fadeout, a symbolic “return to normalcy” designed to reassure audiences and send them on their way, secure in their faith in the enduring indomitability of the status quo.
Problematic as the ending of The Children’s Hour is for many (MacLaine’s character hangs herself), anecdotally I’ve always felt it presented a situation more complex than mere homophobic self-loathing. In the scene precipitating her suicide, Karen comes out to Karen at precisely the same moment she comes out to herself. She falls apart in a stream of consciousness monologue in which she tries to sort out her feelings about herself amidst paralyzing confusion and guilt over the role her lack of self-awareness may or may not have played in the destruction of so many lives. Including her own. It's arguable and certainly up for debate whether Martha's self-disgust ("Oh I feel so damn sick and dirty I can't stand it anymore!")is wholly related to her discovery of her true sexual identity, 11/14
and not, at least in part, also attributable to genuine guilt-based self-recrimination. Both her illtemper towards Joe and her impatience with her silly Aunt are brought on by her repressed feelings for Karen. She must certainly feel considerable guilt in having her overheard outbursts with these two serving as the catalyst for the chain of events resulting in the severest harm coming to the one individual she most loves.
So, while there's no denying Martha's suicide is an extreme response to her suffering from a particularly acute case of "gaynst" (gay-angst); it can also be said (non-politically) to be a kind of final, selfless act of love her character intends it to be. Which is to say that within the confines of the narrative (the last we see of Martha alive, she's not brooding intently upon herself, she's looking lovingly at Karen from a window) Martha's love is such that she seeks to "liberate" Karen by letting her go. Of course, she could have achieved the same thing by merely hopping on a train (which Martha actually does at the end of These Three), but as I said earlier, this is Hollywood, and it would be several more years before the movies would grant any gay character a happy ending...and if you found a pun in that sentence, shame on you! BONUS MATERIAL
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A production still of the libel suit courtroom sequence that was deleted from the final film.
The theatrical trailer for William Wyler's These Three (1936) In this clip from the 1996 documentary, The Celluloid Closet, Shirley MacLaine talks about making The Children's Hour.
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The Children's Hour had its title changed in the UK
Copyright Š Ken Anderson
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