In the film, Audrey plays Karen Wright, a modest woman who runs a boaring school for girls with her best friend, Martha Dobie (Shirley MacLaine). The two women went through college together and worked hard to make their dream come true with this school, and at the beginning of the film, it looks like the dream is finally coming true. This is good news to Karen's boyfriend, Joe, because he has been wanting to marry Karen for a long time. Karen hadn't wanted to get married with such an unstable future, and she felt guilty at leaving Martha before the school was established. After much hemming and hawing, Karen agrees to get married and wants to have a baby within the year.

Unfortunately, an overly spoiled girl by the name of Mary Tilford throws a wrench in everything. She is the bad seed in this school, who bullies other girls, fakes fainting spells and makes up ailments and other drama to draw attention away from an impending (and well-deserved) punishment. After a series of obvious lies and other unforgivable offences, Mary is separated from her friends and has had enough. She runs away from school and flees to her rich grandmother, Amelia Tilford (Fay Bainter). Even grandma is sick of Mary, but the quick-thinking brat starts telling about "strange things" that happen at the school. Possibly borrowing from a dirty novel hidden under her mattress, Mary finally whispers something so awful to her grandmother that she will finally listen. Mary is promptly pulled from school, and word spreads like lightning to parents of all the other children in the school. By the end of the day the school is empty, and Karen and Martha are in hysterics.

Karen and Martha, accompanied by Joe, confront Mary's grandmother, who happens to be Joe's aunt as well. She refuses to reveal why the two women are suddenly pariahs at first, but is finally bullied into saying it out loud: Martha and Karen are lovers. The women deny it, of course, and Joe sides with them. But the damage has been done. A slander suit against Mary's grandmother is filed, but due to Martha's melodramatic and thoroughly selfish Aunt Lily (played by Miriam Hopkins, who portrayed Martha Dobie in These Three) skipping the trial, the defense lost their key witness and Karen and Martha lose the case. Their lives are effectively over. They rattle around the empty school, utterly lost, and can't even leave the house for fear of gawkers -- or worse.

Finally, Aunt Lily returns, broke and looking for free room and board, and is forced to realize just how much damage she has done. It was her words to Martha, overheard by innocent and clueless friends of Mary's, that started this mess in the first place. Summoning up the small bit of courage they have left, they face Mary and her overbearing grandmother one final time, and the truth is finally revealed. Mary is caught in her web of lies and her grandmother promises a public retraction and apology, plus some of her vast wealth to pave over her problems. Martha rightly throws the woman out on her ear, reminding her that all the money in the world won't repair their lives. After Mrs. Tilford leaves, Martha crumbles completely and discovers a part of herself that was only unearthed after this ruinous affair. Karen, guilty over Joe losing his job over his involvement with her and fearful for her cracked friend, breaks off her relationship with her fiancee. While she promises that she just needs a year to get herself sorted, it's painfully obvious that there is nothing for her to go back to. In her eyes, it's finished. She tries to cheer Martha and leaves her temporarily to go outside for a walk, the first time she has felt safe stepping out of the school since the debacle began, only to be overcome by apprehension before she even leaves the grounds. Martha has done the unthinkable.

In the last scene of the film, we see Karen coming face to face with the people who so casually and carelessly ruined her life and the lives of those she loved, perhaps seeing them for the first time since the unseen slander trial. She is the only person able to walk with their head held high, and it makes for a very poignant closing to the film.

While now most people think The Children's Hour tame, especially because it never once mention the word "lesbian" and referred to homosexuality in the obtuse "unnatural," I still feel it's a very powerful movie. The story isn't about what is said and laid before you anyway: it's about the subtle nuances, what can be felt rather than seen. Perhaps modern viewers are just too used to entertainment that spells everything out for them in 10-foot tall letters and a bat to the head, but if you watch for it, the message is there. It's also effective because it shows the all too real and too frequently seen ugly side of people, especially hysterical crowds. We haven't changed much, if at all, in our treatment of people. Even 45 years later people are still scorned for their sexual orientation, and lives are ruined over baseless rumors. The more things change, the more they stay the same, right? Wyler's excellent direction also drive the more subtle points home. Though tragically most small signs of Martha's inclinations were cut out at the last minute by a fearful Wyler, the staging of the shots themselves and the moodiness of the black and white photography show the increasing tension and distance between three people who used to be inseparable.

I don't know how long it will last, but for the time being you can watch the entire film on You Tube, split into 11 parts. Part one is below, and you can find the other 10 installments by clicking on the viewing window and going to the site.

Rating: 5 stars