An (almost) Matched Pair of Movies

 Part of  1922 cartoon, Ohio State Journal

Last week TCM (Turner Classic Movie)channel aired two film versions of the same story one after the other. The story is an adaption of a 1934 stage play by Lillian Hellman titled
The Children's Hour. Film versions are, from 1936 (These Three,) and 1961 (The Children's Hour). The later version was shown first. Comparison was interesting. During 25 years between the two film versions attitudes, at least in the case of film regulatory codes, had changed.
The following information comes from the Wikipedia links above.

Hellman's play was inspired by a 1809 true story of two Scottish school teachers whose lives were destroyed when one of their students accused them of engaging in a lesbian relationship, but in the Scottish case, they eventually won their suit, although that did not change the devastation upon their lives. At the time of the play's premiere (1934) the mention of homosexuality on stage was illegal in New York State, but authorities chose to overlook its subject matter when the Broadway production was acclaimed by the critics.

The Hays Code, in effect at the time of the 1936 film's production, would never permit a film to focus on, or even hint, at lesbianism, Samuel Goldwyn was the only producer interested in purchasing the rights. He signed Hellman to adapt her play for the screen, and the playwright changed the lie about the two school teachers being lovers into a rumor that one of them had slept with the other's fiancé. Because the Production Code refused to allow Goldman to use the play's original title, it was changed to The Lie, and then to These Three.

By the time William Wyler was ready to film the remake in 1961, the Hays Code had been liberalised to allow screenwriter John Michael Hayes to restore the original nature of the lie.

Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine and James Garner as two early 1960s schoolteachers and a doctor gave good performances, as did two young pupils involved in "the lie" (Karen Balkin and Veronica Cartwright). The trio of leading actors in the earlier film version, Merle Oberon, Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea seemed somewhat stilted and less natural in their deliveries, though Bonita Granville and Marcia Mae Jones did a fine job as conniving pupils.

Maybe it's time for a 2016 remake of the play, with full-on exposure of all that was missing from both these versions. The story would still have to be set in the past, otherwise none of the subject matter would make sense. Full courtroom scenes from the libel case ought to be included, along with more about how "the lie" was told, in sufficiently sordid detail to enrage the girl's grandmother sufficiently for her to feel the need to alert all parents to remove their little darlings from the school.

I couldn't help remembering, during a couple of instances when the two teachers were sitting one at each side of their fireplace, a scene eerily like the one depicted in an antique store acquisition of mine - featured in a post HERE.