Actors - The Children's Hour

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	Actors - The Children's Hour

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The Children's Hour is a 1934 stage play written by Lillian Hellman. It is a drama set in an all-girls boarding school run by two women, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie. An angry student, Mary Tilford, runs away from the school and to avoid being sent back she tells her grandmother that the two headmistresses are having a lesbian affair, a claim that is not true. The accusation proceeds to destroy the women's careers, relationships and lives.

Adaptations

The play was made into a 1936 film, but the Production Code, administered by the Hays Commission, forced the nature of the affair to be changed into a heterosexual love triangle, and would not allow the film to keep the same name as the controversial play it was based on; the title was changed to These Three
.

In 1961 the play was again brought to the screen, this time with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine in the lead roles. The Production Code now allowed for the alleged affair to be homosexual in nature, but references to it were allusionary and non-specific. In interviews Shirley MacLaine gave for the documentary the The Celluloid Closet, she says that she and Audrey Hepburn never talked about their characters' lesbianism. She also claims that William Wyler cut out some scenes that would have hinted at her character's love for Hepburn due to the homophobic outcry from the press about the film.

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