The Children's Hour (1961 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Children's Hour
Screenshot from film
Directed by	William Wyler
Produced by	William Wyler Robert Wyler
Written by	Lillian Hellman John Michael Hayes based upon the Hellman play, The Children's Hour
Starring	Audrey Hepburn Shirley MacLaine James Garner
Music by	Alex North
Cinematography	Franz Planer
Editing by	Robert Swink
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date(s)	December 19, 1961
Running time	107 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

For other uses, see The Children's Hour.

The Children's Hour is a 1961 film based on the play of the same name written by Lillian Hellman. This version, directed by William Wyler, stars Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, and James Garner in the leading roles. The play was originally filmed under the title These Three in 1936 but the strictures of the Production Code prevented any reference to homosexuality, so the story was changed to a conventional heterosexual love triangle. By 1961 the much-weakened Code now allowed for the alleged same-sex affair between Hepburn's and MacLaine's characters but references to it were allusionary and non-specific. In interviews Shirley MacLaine gave for the documentary The Celluloid Closet, she said that she and Hepburn never talked about their characters' alleged lesbianism. She also claimed that Wyler cut out some scenes that would have hinted at her character's love for Hepburn because of the outcry from the press about the film.

The movie was also James Garner's first film after suing Warner Bros. to leave the television series Maverick and break into movies. Wyler broke an unspoken blacklist by hiring Garner and the actor appeared steadily in films and television shows over the following four decades.