The Children's Hour

The Children's Hour (1961)

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THE CHILDREN'S HOUR

Reviewed by Heather Picker

Directed by William Wyler. Screenplay by John Michael Hayes from an adaptation by Lillian Hellman. Starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine and James Garner, with Karen Balkin, Fay Bainter and Miriam Hopkins. 1961, 107 min., Not Rated.

Does anyone remember The Fox? You know, that Mark Rydell bastardization of the D.H. Lawrence short story about two women who lived together on a failing farm that doubled as a hotbed of repressed lesbianism? Do you remember being shocked when Sandy Dennis and Anne Heywood kissed, not a lame Jennifer Aniston and Winona Ryder on Friends type of kiss, but a real movie kiss complete with dramatic build-up, and probably (hey, it's been a while since I've seen it) equally dramatic music? And then do you remember staring at the screen in horror (and probably amusement, if you saw it in the '90s knowing things could never work out for those crazy kids, but that a happy dyke ending is just a Dolly Hall-produced film away) when the "real" lesbian of the two died? It wasn't just any death; it was one of the all-time great character punishment deaths, and it was pretty obvious that Dennis's Jill Banford didn't get her comeuppance for being such a whiny, nasally mess. No, it was much more sinister than that ... She liked girls! And since she liked girls, her romantic rival, an exceptionally manly Keir Dullea ("Dull" being the operative word), who walked around in an exceptionally manly way with an exceptionally manly, exceptionally lowered voice, had to be the one to dispose of her. That her character was doomed wasn't enough, she was dispatched when a tree, a tree her girlfriend was too weak to fell herself, was chopped down in an exceptionally manly manner by Dullea and landed square between her legs (yes, between her legs), crushing her. Take that, you, you lesbian!

I bring up The Fox because while it came seven years after William Wyler's cinematic adaptation of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour (take that, progress!), it makes Martha Dobie's plight look positively, well, positive by comparison. Dobie, played by Shirley MacLaine, is one half of the Wright-Dobie School for Girls (Audrey Hepburn plays the other half, Karen Wright), a new establishment catering to the educational needs of little girls like emotional blackmail expert Mary Tilford (Karen Balkin, who makes Patty McCormack's Bad Seed look like Hallie Eisenberg) and petty jewel thief Veronica Cartwright. Martha and Karen are friends from college who work hard for the money (I figured it was about time I referenced Donna Summer in a review of a gay-themed movie) and talk an awful lot about the life they've built for themselves. To quote the tagline, there is something "different" about them. (Personally, I don't think they're "different" at all, but I'm creatively bankrupt and need to get to the next sentence somehow.) Namely, Martha's back stiffens and bitch flag flies when Karen's boyfriend, hunka-hunka burning doctor Joe Cardin (hunka-hunka James Garner) stops by.

Joe, for all his many flaws (he's obnoxious, he's obnoxious, and also he's obnoxious), is bright enough to notice all the deadly rays of hostility his fiancée's pal shoots in his direction, but he's too polite to ask questions. Besides, he's busy badgering Karen about when they'll get married in little conversations that screenwriter John Michael Hayes mistakenly thought were cute. (I mean, c'mon, if you got Audrey Hepburn to agree to meet your sorry ass at the altar, why the hell would you press it any further and keep bothering her about the date? Shouldn't you should be on your knees somewhere, thanking Satan for accepting your mortal soul in exchange for her hand in marriage?) To assure the audience that she is indeed heterosexual, since we're sorta getting the impression her good friend Martha is not, Karen puts her head on Doctor Joe's shoulder and tells him they'll get married when the school year is over. Twelve months from now, she says, she wants to have a baby.

News of the impending nuptials sends Martha reeling, even though Karen has no plans to abandon their school. Cue the first of her friend's many desperate, emotional outbursts that Doctor Joe's future wife doesn't know how to deal with. They patch things up with a tearful hug as little Mary, who we're starting to suspect is evil, looks on. Turns out that's not the only dramatic confrontation Mary is privy to; later she overhears a heated argument between Martha and Martha's insane Aunt Lily (Miriam Hopkins), who brings up her niece's resentment of Doctor Joe by noting that Martha has been "jealous and possessive" of her friends since childhood, calling her "sick" and "unnatural." Since she hates school, and also because she is evil, Mary twists these exchanges into a tawdry tale of lesbian love spilled to her grandmother, Amelia (Oscar-nominee Fay Bainter, who wears funny hats). I'd like to take a moment here to point out that when I was mad at my teachers I accused them of public drug use instead of homosexuality because it was much more pervasive. Also, everyone knew that the one soft-spoken teacher who was really into botany was gay anyway. Back to the movie: Amelia, who happens to be Doctor Joe's aunt, immediately pulls Evil Mary from school, and the rest of the parents follow suit.

As a baffled Martha and Karen try to find out what's going on, Wyler stops directing a movie and starts directing an overlong play, and The Children's Hour begins its descent into suckitude. Karen finally hears the big rumor and, with Martha and Joe, convenes at Funny Hat Amelia's house for a never-ending fest o' drama that comes to involve Mephistophelean Mary and cat burglar Cartwright. Basically, everything you need to know about the film comes out when Amelia calls the women sick and instead of telling Auntie Funny Hat something like "Eff you," or "So what if they had a relationship?" he kicks off his argument with, "If she's sick..." as I slump over in my chair and repeatedly bang my head against the coffee table.

It doesn't get any better, folks. The Dobie-Wright-Cardin trio (since by now Martha, as hyper-defensive about her sexuality as I was in seventh grade when there was no possible way I liked the girl who sat next to me in geography since I was a raging heterosexual, except for the raging and heterosexual parts, is being nice to Doctor Joe) deduce that Mary was behind the story and Her Evilness is interrogated before klepto Cartwright's questioning resolves absolutely nothing, though it does highlight the already very obvious point that little Karen Balkin is the most unbearably annoying kid to ever grace the silver screen, with the exception of that spiky-haired, bespectacled punk from Jerry Maguire. (I mean that about Balkin in a good way. The Jerry Maguire kid is another story.) Martha and Karen go home, dispirited, and are still in seclusion when the melodramatic heights of the dinner theater version of Witness for the Prosecution recently staged at Aunt Funny Hat's house are nearly toppled by Martha grabbing a crying Karen's hand before she hears the tail end of the hit song, "I'm a Huge Lesbian" on the radio, realizes it applies to her, and turns away, realizing it some more as Karen hugs her.

Mary's allegations make national headlines and there is a court case we don't get to see, in which the judge finds Martha and Karen guilty of "sinful sexual knowledge of one another." A bunch of silly 1960s stuff happens: the women become social pariahs, Doctor Joe is fired for associating with them, psychedelic images come flying from all directions as swingin' music plays and Shirley MacLaine does a funny Austin Powers-ish dance. I made up the last part, but everything else is true. Joe sells his place, lines up a new job, dresses snazzy in anticipation of his wedding next week, and tells Martha and Karen that he wants the three of them to move together. This is the part where a relieved Martha exits to cook a celebratory dinner and a weary Karen confronts Joe, making him ask if the rumors were true so she has a reason to break up with him, saying things will never be the same if he had to ask. (Matters are left open-ended, though, as she tells them their time apart will let them know what should come next.)

This is where things get interesting again. As a guilt-ridden Cartwright comes clean about the web of deception to her mom and the Funny Hat Aunt, Karen and Martha talk about Doctor Joe. Karen says it's over with him, and wants to leave with an upset Martha, who tries to rationalize their relationship. Things are heading in an obvious direction and Karen doesn't seem too surprised at first, but then it gets all:

    Martha: There's always been something wrong.
    Karen: Stop the crazy talk.
    Martha: I'm guilty.
    Karen: You're guilty of nothing.

Martha continues that she can't explain it but it's true, what Evil Mary said is true, as Karen grows more upset. "I've never loved a man. I never knew why before," she says, and the hearts of a thousand gay moviegoers jump in their throats. Those hearts plummet and, after a bounce or two, settle firmly at the bottom of increasingly sickened stomachs as she continues, "I feel so damn sick and dirty I can't stand it anymore." Then take a shower, Martha! Don't commit suicide, you're letting the Aunt Funny Hats of the world win if you do. My pleas, naturally, go unanswered. It is the '60s, after all.

Amelia, now aware of the full extent of Evil Mary's evilness, comes to apologize to the women, promising a reversal of the judge's decision, reparations, a public apology, and declarations in the papers. All over "sinful sexual knowledge of one another." I start to marvel at it all before realizing that thirty years later certain unnamed celebrities who star in Mission: Impossible movies sue publications over similar rumors. Karen orders her out and tells Martha that she's leaving soon for a new beginning and would like her to come along. This, mind you, after Martha has outed herself to the mostly calm friend she just admitted romantic feelings for. But before you start to relax and think maybe, just maybe Wyler is doing things right this time around (when he first filmed the material as These Three in 1936, with Miriam Hopkins in the Dobie role, the lesbianism was replaced by a heterosexual love triangle), Martha says, "Let's talk about it tomorrow. I want to go to sleep." By sleep, of course, she means "hang myself."

For the sake of consistency, Wyler blows his last chance to redeem the picture by having someone, anyone, say that Martha didn't have to die. Rather, he opts to showcase Hepburn's admittedly lovely neck as she pays her respects to her dearly departed friend and leaves, walking past onlookers with her head held high, a shadowy Doctor Joe watching from a distance. So what's the message? At first glance it sounds a lot like, "Gay? Kill yourself. No one will really care, except your best friend," and it doesn't change any at second or third. But my moral ambiguity detector was sent a' ringing by Karen's behavior, or more precisely by Audrey Hepburn's occasionally unreadable reactions to Martha's revelations. I would like to have known what her character made of the "Me gay, me like you," talk, but that she staunchly stood by Martha, and even chose her over Doctor Joe in a convoluted way, is an interesting point often overlooked by the film's detractors. Recommended to the curious on the strength of good acting, Franz Planer's black and white cinematography, and the subject matter. Released as The Loudest Whisper in the UK.

Availability: The Children's Hour is available on DVD. It is out of print on VHS, but used copies can be obtained.

Related reading: The original Lillian Hellman play is available in print. The Children's Hour is also discussed in a number of books on homosexuality in the movies, most notably Vito Russo's landmark study The Celluloid Closet and its documentary companion of the same name, in which Shirley MacLaine gives her opinion of the movie. (Hint: She's pissed Martha died.)

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