The Children's Hour

8 p.m. Saturday, July 10 , 1999, Caravan of Dreams theater

After "straightening up" Lillian Hellman's play for 1936's These Three, director William Wyler paid penance by remaking the film in 1961 with the lesbianism intact.

Nevermind the fact that the word "lesbian" is never uttered in the film and we're pretty sure stars Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn, as two operators of an all-girl boarding school, never actually do the wild thing.

Hellman's commenting on the destructive power of gossip more than anything here. When a rotten little girl (Veronica Cartwright, who later paid for her sins in 1979's Alien) accuses the two women of having an affair, the locals flake off into full McCarthy-istic witch hunt mode. It's not true, of course, even though MacLaine wishes it were, but the lie still manages to destroy them all. The film was vilified for its shocking subject matter. Films in Review wrote that it, "asserts that those who choose to practice lesbianism are not destroyed by it ­ a claim disproven by the number of lesbians who become insane or commit suicide." Meow. Rated PG. USA, 1961, 107 min., b&w.

Director: William Wyler; Writer: John Mitchell Hayes; Based on: The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman; Starring: Shirley MacLaine, Audrey Hepburn, James Garner, Veronica Cartwright

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