THE CHILDREN’S HOUR

In 1961, a film version of Lillian Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour was produced under the same title. Unlike its 1936 cinematic predecessor—which sidestepped the lesbian crux of the story to comply with restrictive Hollywood decency codes of the time—the recent version was faithful to the original Broadway drama’s storyline, that of two schoolteachers whose livelihood is ruined when a malicious student spreads gossip about their relationship being indecent. The twist happens when one of the pair, Martha, reveals that she does have romantic feelings for her colleague, Karen, who is happily engaged to a local doctor. From there, the twisted love-triangle becomes progressively more tragic for all three...

(Cinzi Lavin, glreview.org)