Close friends Martha and Karen build a private boarding school together with the aid of the local doctor Joe. The school takes off and many students enroll, one of whom is a trouble-maker who tells a scandalous lie that threatens to destroy the trio's lives.
Acting
Bonita Granville's Mary is cinema's most hateable child villain.
Direction
Wyler squeezes every drop of tension from Lillian Hellman's stage play.
Writing
Hellman's dialogue cuts like broken glass — elegant and cruel.
Director
William Wyler
Miriam Hopkins
Martha Dobie
Merle Oberon
Karen Wright
Joel McCrea
Dr. Joseph 'Joe' Cardin
Catherine Doucet
Lily Mortar
Alma Kruger
Amelia Tilford
Bonita Granville
Mary Tilford
Marcia Mae Jones
Rosalie Wells
Carmencita Johnson
Evelyn
Margaret Hamilton
Agatha
Walter Brennan
Taxi Driver
Joan Barclay
Schoolgirl (uncredited)
Al Bridge
Mrs. Walton's Chauffeur (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was the second film adaptation of Hellman's play — the first, 1931's 'The Children's Hour,' was so censored it barely made sense. Wyler finally got to tell the real story in his 1961 remake.
The original play explicitly depicted lesbianism; 1936's Production Code forced Wyler to heteronormatize the scandal into a vague 'unnatural relationship.' The 1961 version restored Hellman's actual text.
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