The Children's Hour(1961)

About a week ago, I finally got down and corrected one of anomalies on the blog. Despite of all my admiration for Audrey Hepburn, I never wrote anything about her on this blog. I finally did that last week. After watching a documentary The Audrey Hepburn Story(2000) based on her life, I decided this is the opportunity I needed to rectify my mistake and took it with both hands. However, before doing that I went through her filmography once again to check what have I seen and of the remaining movies, what do I need to see? Fortunately, everything I wanted to see was readily available and within a week I ended up watching 4 Audrey Hepburn movies - I decided to let the fifth one go. One of them was The Children's Hour(1961). If you have read my Audrey Hepburn post, I said there as well that in my opinion this is one of the most criminally overlooked movie whenever someone talks about Audrey Hepburn's career. For some reason, I had never heard anywhere of this movie before and if I did not go digging into her filmography, I probably would not have seen this movie for a long time. I can only say that I certainly am happy I did go looking out for this as this is a fine piece of cinema which deserves much more attention that it is usually given.

Based on Lillian Hellman play by the same name, directed by William Wyler and starring Audrey Hepburn along with Shirley MacLaine in the role of two close friends Karen Wright and Martha Dobie, since college who have combined their forces to run a small boarding school for girls. There are only 20 girls in their school and these two are sharing all the responsibilities at school - they are teachers, they are headmistresses, they are wardens as well as cooks too. They both have put a lot of blood and sweat into this place to make it worth any reputation and slowly but surely their hard-work looks like is paying off as they are just about starting to make their school profitable. And as it would require for two people to get this far together, they have great understanding and trust between them. Both the girls have put quite a few years of their lives in this Dream Project however, they both have reached a point where it has become necessary to take certain decisions in their personal life that they can not postpone any further. Karen has been engaged to the local doctor Joe Cardin for couple of years now and they need to get married soon, even Joe is staring to be little restless now whereas Martha really needs to find someone and settle down as soon as possible. After some deliberation, Joe and Karen decide that this indeed is high time and they should get married after the end of current school term. Martha reacts to this news rather unpleasantly as she feels that this will mean Karen ignoring the school a little and further increase in her responsibilities, even though Karen and Joe both assure her that will not be the case. However, being a good friend and inherently good person, she keeps her issues aside and is happy for her friend.

Martha also has an aunt named Lily that lives with them and gives them a helping hand in school as well. Lily actually wants to be an actress on Broadway but can't really get past odd role here and there. Now this aunt Lily is a character and is meddling and rather cunning. While arguing with Martha once, she accuses her of being jealous of Karen and having an unnatural kind of relationship with her, she even goes ahead and ascertains that it has always been the case. Unfortunately, two of the schoolgirls overhear this conversation in the other room and off course go on to tell their other room-mate at night. Now, this other girl is Mary - a natural troublemaker who both Karen and Dobie believe is bad influence on other girls and because of her attitude gets punished quite often. However, more importantly, she is granddaughter of Amelia Tilford, one of the most influential and respected families in town. She is also an aunt to Joe. Mary being punished for anything and everything she does has a kind of spite of both her teachers and wants to get rid of them or from them as soon as possible. After hearing about the conversation between Lily and Martha from her friends, she decided to use it against them to get her out of there. So one day, she quietly sneaks out of her school and goes to her grandmother. At first Amelia disregards this as ridiculous but Mary seems to be persistent and also Lily, who is been asked to leave this place as Martha has had enough of her, unknowingly acknowledges of making any such remark. This puts Amelia in very uncomfortable position and she not only decides to take Mary back home for good, she also passes on a word to the parents of other girls in school that Karen and Martha might be lovers. One by one, all the girls start leaving the school leaving Karen and Martha to wonder what exactly happened ? and what follows turns their lives upside down completely.

I am not gonna lie and say that there was any other reason I saw The Children's Hour or even went looking out for it than Audrey Hepburn. Off course, having one more recognizable name, Shirley MacLaine that is, in the mix made it even more desirable but still I probably would not have watched it had it nor been for Audrey Hepburn. So, let me start with her. It is one of those movies where her acting is of much more relevance than her looks and charms and yet again she proves that she does not need them to please the audience, she is quite capable of doing it through her acting. Working yet again with William Wyler who apparently saw an actress behind that pretty face and gave her roles like The Nun's Story(1959) and off course her breakthrough role in Roman Holiday(1953), she does a great job indeed as usually calm and pleasant but determined and straight-thinking in face of an adversity Karen. Shirley MacLaine as Dobie has more dramatic and little troubled role and I am sure that none of us has ever had any doubts of her acting prowess. It's just good to see 60's Shirley MacLaine that I was stunned by in The Apartment(1960). I should also mention James Garner as Joe and Miriam Hopkins as Lily as well. But if someone really deserves to be mentioned here, it is Karen Balkin as malicious and rather bossy among her friends Mary. Mary is just a kid and all she wants is to escape from school where she thinks her teachers are being unnecessarily hard on her. She doesn't really fathom the implications of her actions and keeps on playing the same card to keep her from being punished yet again, this time possibly by her grandmother and this storm blows completely over her head.

Now, I am not going to lie and pretend to say that The Children's Hour is a masterpiece. I wouldn't even say that it is a movie that everyone has to watch. It is a decent enough film with little different story than we usually see with two strong and commendable center performances. But, my only problem is this movie deserves a lot more recognition from everyone than it seems to get. And that is the only reason that I have spent all this time on writing this post - to do my part in helping it get that recognition. Hopefully, this will make you want to watch it and it will soon be there.

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