Karen Wright and Martha Dobie are best friends since college and they own the boarding school Wright and Dobie School for Girls with twenty students. They are working hard as headmistresses and teachers to grow the school and make it profitable. Karen is engaged with the local doctor Joe Cardin, who is the nephew of the powerful and influent Mrs. Amelia Tilford. While the spiteful and liar Mary, who is Amelia's granddaughter and a bad influence to the other girls, is punished by Karen after telling a lie, Martha has an argument with her snoopy aunt Lily Mortar in another room. Lily accuses Martha of being jealous and having an unnatural relationship with Karen. Mary's roommate Rosalie Wells overhears the shouting and tells Mary what Mrs. Mortar had said about her niece. The malicious Mary accuses Karen and Martha of being lesbians to her grandmother and Amelia spreads the gossip to the parents of the students that withdraw them from the school. Karen and Martha lose a lawsuit against ... Written by

Plot Synopsis:
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Two young teachers, Martha Dobie (Shirley MacLaine) and Karen Wright (Audrey Hepburn), who met at school when they were 17, build up a private school for girls in conservative New England. Martha's Aunt Lily, an unemployed, elderly actress, lives with the two of them, and teaches elocution. After two years of engagement to Dr. Joe Cardin (James Garner), a reputable OB/GYN, Karen finally agrees to set a date for their wedding. Joe is related to rich Mrs. Amelia Tilford, whose granddaughter, Mary, is also going to the Dobie-Wright School. Mary is a problematic, conniving child, often bullying her classmates. In particular, she blackmails Rosalie Wells, whom she caught stealing a bracelet.

One day, Mary lies to Lily about skipping part of her elocution class. Karen tries to comfort Mary, saying, "If you need to let off steam, just tell us the truth and we'll try to understand," but Mary sociopathically sticks to her lie. Karen punishes her by refusing to let her attend the weekend's boat races. A furious Mary exacts her revenge by inventing a story about Martha and Karen being involved in a love affair. Her tale is based on fragments of a quarrel that Mary's roommates accidentally overheard. Mary tells her grandmother that she observed the two women kissing each other. Mrs. Tilford believes her granddaughter, and immediately informs the other parents. As a result, all girls are withdrawn from the school, without giving Karen or Martha any explanations. Finally, one father offers a straight answer. Karen learns the real reason behind the sudden action. She angrily confronts Mrs. Tilford together with Joe and Martha. Mary again tells her tale, and forces Rosalie to confirm her statements. The two framed women sue Mrs. Tilford for libel and slander, but fail in court.

The story is circulated in the local media, utterly destroying the reputation of the two teachers. Only Joe still keeps contact to the two women, offering to take them away and start a new life. However, even his trust in Karen is shaken, and he thus asks her if the rumors are true. In the resulting quarrel, Karen breaks up with him, claiming that she needs time to think everything over. As Martha learns about the break-up, she confides in Karen that she, indeed, always felt more than friendship for her, and that now, after hearing the made-up story, she finally realizes that she is in love with her.

Meanwhile, the mother of Rosalie discovers a stash of stolen items among Rosalie's things, including the bracelet Mary used to blackmail her. The two girls are questioned, and Mrs. Tilford learns that the story was, indeed, made up. She visits the two teachers, and tries to apologize to them, making clear that the court case will be reopened, and the two will not only be cleared of all charges but also well compensated. Karen, however, refuses to accept the apology, as she feels that the damage done to their lives cannot be undone. Afterwards, she briefly talks to Martha about her plans for the future, going somewhere far away together to start a new life. Martha, however, remains quite sullen and claims she needs to sleep. Karen then leaves for a short walk during which Martha hangs herself. The movie ends as Karen walks away from the funeral alone with Joe watching her from the distance.

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Chris Campbell from Coventry, England
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A 'classic' film, (whatever that may be), can almost never be re-made in quite the same way again. It's something that we've thought about for quite a while, though - and noted filmmakers (including Gus Van Sant and Sydney Pollack) have tried and failed to re-make films to jazz up their appeal, and make them more accessible to a wider audience. It's something that passed through my mind quite a few times as I watched "The Children's Hour" today. Quite clearly, this is a film that more people deserve to see and know about, and it would certainly be interesting to try and re-make it, but we would definitely lose something in the translation.

The largest reason for this is because it is a film of a definite period - the issues raised in the film are widely discussed these days, whereas in the period the film was set, homosexuality was something to be feared and despised. Similarly, we do not have the various elaborate codes of honour that are so prevalent in the film, and dictate the actions of almost all characters. It's a pity, then, that this film will be alien to lots of people today. The answer, however, is not in a re-make (the film is itself a re-make of a 1936 film by the same director called "These Three", and an adaptation of a play of the same name by Lillian Hellman), but a re-release of this fine example of moviemaking.

Boasting a terrific cast including Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine and James Garner, "The Children's Hour" is the story of two teachers, Miss Dobie and Miss Wright, who found a school for young girls in an idyllic town in America. Then, out of boredom, spite and plain maliciousness, a child tells a vicious lie that will bring about the downfall of the school, the teachers, and all caught up in the horrible set of affairs. It is quite possible to see the creeping evil and hatred that stems from Mary, the child concerned (played wonderfully by Karen Balkin). Eventually, it reaches out and destroys all it touches.

The photography is great (it was nominated for an Oscar) - there are many scenes which are so wonderfully composed that each frame paints a thousand words: the climax of the movie is a great example. The relationship between MacLaine and Hepburn is delicately and sensitively portrayed, especially for a cast who didn't know what they were doing (according to MacLaine in an interview for "The Celluloid Closet"). James Garner is also good in his role as the doctor about to marry Hepburn, although the movie is clearly not aimed at giving him the best lines. There are also many, many superb supporting roles - and the film's strength comes from a great ensemble performance.

It doesn't really matter what the child accuses the teachers of (indeed we only find out a good hour into the film, although it has been strongly implied), because the film isn't really about homosexuality. As MacLaine points out in "The Celluloid Closet" (a cracking documentary about the history of homosexuality in the movies), it is about "a child's accusation". It is also about the power held by a town to bring about the downfall of two perfectly nice, perfectly ordinary young people. The are lines in the film that one should never forget and it should also make us think about the way our words shape the situations in which we live: ("unnatural" is a great example).

All in all, a lovely film from director William Wyler ("Ben-Hur", "Roman Holiday", "Funny Girl"), and one that deserves to be seen by a wider audience - re-release, please!

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strose from Illinois, United States
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I just watched "The Children's Hour" for the first time this evening. I must say that I was very impressed. Hepburn and MacLaine gave brilliant performances as the two headmistresses of a girl's school. The cinema photography was outstanding and the direction and writing were fantastic.

Turner Classic Movies ran this gorgeous film this evening and the comments that were made after the run brought several thoughts to mind. After viewing the movie, I decided to get on-line and see what others had to say about this film.

The one comment that was made tonight was that it was thought that the film didn't really `appeal' to the heightened sensibility of the audiences of the 60's. However, I felt that the movie was timeless in its observations and portrayals of its two main characters. Grant it, homosexuality was NOT the main focus of this movie but it does play a very important, albeit, small role.

In today's society, homosexuality is more widely accepted than it was at the time this play was written. However, there is one area in society that it is still 'taboo' to be gay and that is in the teaching profession. There are STILL, more than 40 years after this movie was made, teachers that cannot be who they really are for fear of losing their jobs, the respect of their peers and the trust of parents. Grant it this is not in every part of the country, in every town, but it is still as thus in small-town America. I know this for fact, as I am the life-partner of a teacher. I know what it is like for him to have to hide who he really is and the torture that he goes through because of it. Children can say some very vicious things and I have seen what it can do to a person first-hand. This is why I feel that this picture is very 'true to life'; because in so many ways this is still the way things are today.

Indeed, more people should see this movie! Maybe people would think before spreading rumors. This is a prime example of what one comment can do to a person's life and how it can snowball.

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ebandit from Alabama
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In this remarkable film, a child's malicious lie destroys the lives of two young teachers. The child lies to avoid school because "everyone there hates me." The lie is believed because it is compounded by idle ramblings. Then it is upheld by a girl who is lying only to protect herself. This piece plays remarkably well today as it shows that children do lie even when they don't really know what they are talking about. Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine are remarkable in this work as they show the emotional upheaval that a simple lie can cause.

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bregund from San Francisco
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There are spoilers in this review.

What a dark, brilliant film. Audrey Hepburn, Shirley Maclaine, and James Garner are absolutely wonderful in this timeless gem of a movie. The immutable power of a child's false witness is seldom portrayed better than in this film. History has shown that just a few impressionable adults and one vengeful child can produce a mountain of misery: for example, witness the abominations of the Salem witch trials or the Wenatchee, Washington child sex ring.

Karen Balkin is absolutely perfect in the role of Mary Tilford, the vicious little rich girl who easily puts Patricia McCormack from `The Bad Seed' to shame as she falsely accuses her teachers of having a lesbian relationship. She ruins several lives with her deceit, breaks up an engagement, shuts down a school, and destroys the loving bond of her family. It is wrenching to watch the desolation that ensues because of her bald-faced dishonesty: yokels stop in front of the abandoned school and point and stare, a delivery boy smirks at them, and the whole town turns their backs on them. The end of this film is unutterably sad and poignant; Maclaine, the best actor in the group, wrings every last bit of pathos from her character, and the devastation is unapologetically crystal-clear.

The unfairness of life and its attendant majority group of people who readily accept easily-believed lies was never made more lucid than in this film. The sad thing is that this sort of thing goes on every day, all over the world, which makes this film a cautionary tale about judging your neighbor too quickly.

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Poseidon-3 from Cincinnati, OH
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As with several projects involving Lillian Helman, the backstory is nearly as interesting as the written work. In this case, her trailblazing play "The Children's Hour" was morphed into a film called "These Three". Because lesbianism was one aspect of the plot, the story had to be sanitized to meet the Hays Code in place at the time. The changes imposed on it actually resulted in a striking and memorable film. Years later, the same director (Wyler) attempted to tackle the original story in it's unaltered form, but, ironically, it was unable to match the level of the first movie. Here single, closely knit teachers Hepburn and MacLaine are just realizing their dream of running their own girls school when a bitter, vengeful child creates a snowballing, vicious rumor about them out of spite. Influential and "well-meaning" Bainter (the grandmother of the child) takes the rumor to heart and soon the school is in jeopardy, Hepburn faces losing her handsome doctor fiancee (Garner) and MacLaine is forced to face some painful truths about herself. The film is attractively shot and well-appointed in its details. Hepburn is lovely and does a fine job. MacLaine gets a meaty part with several strong moments. Garner shows surprising vulnerability along with his customary charm. Hopkins (a lead in "These Three") hams it up enjoyably as MacLaine's melodramatic aunt. Bainter lends her typically strong presence and was Oscar nominated (even if she occasionally looks like Herbert Marshall in drag.) Balkin (as the deplorable child) is appropriately spoiled and malicious, though it's hard to understand how the adults can't see through her machinations. One of her victims is Cartwright, who would later appear in "The Birds" and "Alien". Though the subject matter was still taboo even in 1961, enough of the elements come through in the film to get the points across. Unfortunately, the treatment of the subject is rather unenlightened and at times awkward. However, due to the timid approach to the material, creative use was made of visuals and unheard dialogue in order to avoid explicitly stating many of the details. Situated benignly into the dialogue (whether intentional or not one can't tell) are phrases like "in the closet" and "sissy". Alex North ingeniously interpolated the childhood song "Skip to My Loo" into his score whenever Balkin is around. (The song's lyrics detail spoilers like "fly's in the buttermilk" and "cat's in the cream jar" which are certainly in line with the type of ruination she causes everyone.) She must have been a little TOO annoying as she scarcely worked again after this. When all is said and done, the film is a well-heeled curiosity falling short of greatness, but offering a great early glimpse of attitudes toward homosexuality on the big screen.

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encroisade from Canada
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In 2007 in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, a male teacher with seniority was politely asked to resign by the high school where he had worked for several years because his personal website (where his name did not even appear) contained suggestive photos of himself and his lover; it was somehow found and reported on to the principal. So you see, the premise of "The Children's Hour" is not at all out-of-date!

What is absolutely fascinating about this film, and what makes it unique in all the dramas which have been made on the subject of homosexuality, is the treatment of the road of self-discovery taken by these two very different women.

MacLaine wants Hepburn to buy some new clothes in an early scene, because she remembers how stylish her friend liked to be in her university days, and she even shares the memory of her first sight of Hepburn, when she said to herself, "What a pretty girl!" By the time the action of this movie begins, these two women have already lived and worked together for at least ten years. There was university together. Then, they both started teaching and accumulated several years' worth of experience; and it must certainly have taken a while to save up the money to set up the private girls' school of their dreams. That is a long relationship, a very committed relationship. Many similar career women in the 1960's, back to the 1870's (!) - famous women novelists, scientists, musicians, artists, poets - are now casually described in academia as lesbians, if they had any kind of a lengthy partnership with another woman at all. It has become a fashionable, politically correct label. But are these labels accurate?

Years ago, a sisterly friendship was accepted as just that. Now some kind of sex act is required and assumed. Nobody is supposed to be able to exist without regular orgasms. Nonsense! The culture has turned us all into Pavlovian dogs who salivate on cue. It is not true that 'everybody is doing it.' It wasn't true in past generations, and it isn't even true today.

The women in "The Children's Hour" were not 'doing it' either. But the movie is thrilling because it is not concerned with the spasms of body parts, but with the deep things of the heart.

MacLaine adored Hepburn, and always had. Hepburn was surely conscious, at some level all those years, of that adoration. Every lasting friendship between two people has unspoken dynamics, reasons why the individuals relate strongly to one another, key roles they play in each others' life story; sex may or may not be involved at all.

But, in this case, we can be sure that sex was involved, at a repressed level to start with. MacLaine came to realize that even touching Hepburn's hand was a pleasure which formerly she had chosen not to analyze too closely.

Mary, the awful, precocious schoolchild, whom we have seen reading some 'dirty book' in bed at night with a flashlight, evidently got her hands on something very graphic indeed, and this is what horrified the grandmother when she whispered what she couldn't say aloud, in the back of the rich old lady's limousine. There was more to this account than merely a story of 'kissing'.

As MacLaine says in her own great scene, somehow that monstrous little girl had sensed by intuition 'a grain of truth' to wrap her lie around. That 'grain of truth' becomes a snowball, by the end of the movie. MacLaine has confessed her love for Hepburn. Without histrionics, but with quiet honesty, Hepburn has confessed the same to her friend: "I love you, too." And Hepburn, even faced with total vindication and financial security from the libel award, never once considers contacting James Garner and putting their marriage plans back on track. Why not? The answer is that she herself has slowly come to a realization of her own need to make a life with MacLaine. She goes for her walk, ready for the future ahead.

But it is MacLaine, looking lovingly out the window at Hepburn, almost blissfully, secure for the first time that she is loved and valued by the person she cares about the most, who still knows that the future ahead for the two of them will entail a higher price for her than she is willing to pay. She cannot face the inevitable physical expression of her love for Hepburn. She is also burdened by a dysfunctional family background, with her only relative being the crazed, delusional aunt who has sponged off of her, and then let her down when she ignored those telegrams pleading for her to come back to testify for the two of them.

MacLaine and Hepburn do know, as they reveal in one of their final conversations, that there are lesbians, someplace, out there somewhere, who do accept themselves and who do somehow make lives for themselves. But MacLaine says, "We are not like that."

Hepburn has the strength to try. MacLaine isn't strong enough.

This is what Hepburn senses as she walks back towards the house, as she has been thinking things over on her walk. The aunt's calling out, looking for MacLaine, makes her really alarmed. But by the time she breaks down MacLaine's door, it is too late.

Hepburn's second walk, after the funeral, so purposefully reminiscent of the previous walk, is the quick step of a soldier, marching to battle. She is not afraid. And she is free to make any choice she wants. The stick figures of the townspeople standing at the edge of the graveyard can never touch her again.

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Merwyn Grote (majikstl@aol.com) from St. Louis, Missouri
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The Children's Hour More than just an ounce of truth... ((((SPOILERS))))) THE CHILDREN'S HOUR has gotten a rather bad rap over the years. It has gained this reputation that it is somehow a noble effort, but nonetheless a failure. That because of its subject matter and the era in which it was made, the need to gingerly handle the subject of lesbianism makes the end result seem dishonestly incomplete at best or just cowardly at worst. The fact that it is a tragedy which ends in the death of a gay character, underscores this need by some to devalue its importance and deride its power because it doesn't meet the harsher standards of political correctness.

It is probable that if the film (or more accurately Lillian Hellman's original play) were to be filmed today, much of it would be altered. Even if a new version were set in the 1960s of the movie or the 1930s of the original play, the filmmakers would face considerable pressure to make the gay characters more defiant, the homophobic characters more transparently belligerent and the presumed nature of the lesbian relationship more explicit. And that would be the wrong thing to do. Even though the film was made on the eve of an era that saw censorship beginning to crumble, it depicts a time when homosexuality was barely mentioned, let alone something to inspire defiant pride.

It has been suggested by Hellman, director William Wyler and star Shirley MacLaine that the gay angle of the story is really secondary to the story's main concern, that being the power of lies to destroy. I think this is more than a little disingenuous, a way of sidestepping the issue. Homophobia is the point of the story, whether the "lie" in the story is really a lie or not. That's why the 1936 film version, THESE THREE (also directed by Wyler), doesn't work, despite being well made and well acted. THE CHILDREN'S HOUR rings true, despite its evasive nature.

Both films deal with two women who run a small, exclusive girls school whose lives and careers are destroyed by stories told by a couple of their pupils. In THESE THREE the story is sanitized so that it deals with accusations that one of the teachers has had an affair with the other's fiance; THE CHILDREN'S HOUR returns to the play's original plot wherein the two teachers are accused of lesbianism. THESE THREE, though melodramatically played, has little dramatic weight: unsubstantiated accusations of an affair that everybody denies ever happened, might raise eyebrows, but hardly would carry such dire consequences, especially since the two children making the claims are shown to be so unstable and unreliable. And the film's desperate attempt at a happy ending doesn't help.

Homosexuality has to be the linchpin of THE CHILDREN'S HOUR, because little else would create such irrational fear. The "lie" of the story would have to be so very threatening in 1961, otherwise it would not be credible that parents would overreact so fiercely or that the words of three upstanding citizens would be rejected over the claims of two foolish little girls. I think the film paints a fair and accurate picture of a time when homophobia wasn't considered a bigotry, but a logically parental concern. As such the film is neither pro-gay nor anti-gay, rather a consideration of a time of ignorance.

Faye Bainter's Mrs. Tilford is what we would now call homophobic, but she is not an evil person. She is foolish to the extent that she can't see how manipulative and dishonest her grandchild is, but her actions against the school and its teachers are based on the prevailing social outlook of the time. She acts out of genuine concern, not hysterical outrage. Indeed, her view of homosexuality is not all that different from that of MacLaine's Martha Dobie, one of the accused teachers. It is Martha's suicide, upon admitting her true romantic feelings toward Audrey Hepburn's Karen Wright, that disturbs many who criticize the film. Martha is no more comfortable with homosexuality than Mrs. Tilford, but her fear of homosexuality is intensified and internalized. But Martha's death is not mandated to appease the moral atmosphere of the time, as some have suggested, nor because of her own self-hatred, but because that is the unfortunate logical path the story has to take. In a tormented confession, Martha reveals the contempt and shame she has for her feelings, but this is not meant to represent the honesty of homophobia, but rather the dishonesty of traditionally accepted mores. Pride and defiance are not options to Martha; she has neither the understanding nor the strength to endure the battle between her feelings and the moral convictions that society has taught her. As a tragic figure she is more than an appropriate symbol of her time. As a character, she is beautifully and sympathetically embodied by MacLaine in one of her finest performances.

The film's message is not that homosexuality destroys Martha, but that ignorance poisons the waters. Martha's death is undeserved, but not a punishment of her lesbianism. Martha is a good person, a person who has our sympathy, not our pity. The injustice of her death confirms the film's empathy for the homosexual character. Unlike the faux happily-ever-after conclusion of THESE THREE, THE CHILDREN'S HOUR forces the viewer to question conventional morality.

The film ends on a strangely ambiguous note. Martha confesses her feelings to Karen, but Karen evolves into an enigma. Even before Martha reveals her true feelings, Karen finally rejects her fiance (played by James Garner), by forcing him to express the doubts about their relationship that she herself has apparently being harboring all along. But she accepts Martha's confession of love, yet makes no attempt to reciprocate. The film hints, but won't confirm that the "lie with the ounce of truth" is as true about Karen as it was about Martha. Karen seems to have gone from denying her feelings toward Martha to accepting them and then repressing them. The film ends with Karen leaving Martha's funeral, apparently strong-willed and defiant, but it is not clear just why. It's not likely that Karen feels vindication over Mrs. Tilford's apology, yet it is equally unlikely that Martha's death could possibly have inspired feelings of pride and defiance. The final shots of Hepburn possess an undeniable power, perhaps foreshadowing the changes in the way society would eventually view homosexuality. Martha's martyrdom makes Karen a stronger person, whatever her sexual inclination. It's not a happily-ever-after ending, but it is a promise of better endings to come.

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jotix100 from New York
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William Wyler showed he wasn't afraid to tackle again this Lillian Hellman's play. He had directed the film years before, but the tone had been changed during the first version of "The Children's Hour". In fact, there is no gayness to speak of in the previous adaptation, "These Three".

Even for 1961, when the film was released, lesbianism, was not treated, or seen, in the same fashion one encounters it everywhere today. In fact, the dialogue of the film doesn't include the word "lesbian" at all! Lillian Hellman was a woman committed to show the ills in society she lived in. Hypocrisy is dealt with in most of her work. In this film, she emphasizes the fatal consequences of how a lie can destroy lives, as it's the case here. Because of a brat's hatred for authority and discipline, Karen's and Martha's reputation suffer greatly because the adults are so bent into condemning them without much of an investigation to see if the accuser is lying, or not.

Martha at the end reveals her feelings for Karen, which we suspected all along. There were no indications or tell tell signs between these two young women of any kind to substantiate the charges. In fact, Karen is extremely hurt by just being accused of being a lesbian, when she, for all appearances, is in love with young and handsome Dr. Cardin.

When the truth is realized, we see how things change, but it's too late for Martha, who has taken things in her own hands. At the last scene we watch most of the people that have been instrumental in accusing Karen and Martha at the cemetery as they all feel guilty of what they have done to ruin these women.

William Wyler got good acting in general of his small cast. Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn make good contributions as Martha and Karen. Miriam Hopkins is the self-centered aunt Lily. Fay Banter is Amerlia Tilford, the woman who is instrumental in ruining the women. James Garner is good as Dr. Cardin, and Karen Belkin makes an impression with her evil Mary Tilford.

The film seems today as somehow dated. Mr. Wyler finally was able to do justice to Ms. Hellman's play.

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Marie-62 from xxxx
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When Martha Dobie and Karen Wright are accused of lesbianism, they're entire world comes crashing down. Karen loses the man she loves and so happens to have been engaged to for two long years, Joe (James Gardner). Martha loses her life, basically, and everything that she's ever had. And this is all because of a vicious little brat that anyone with common sense wants to slap when they watch this movie, Mary Tilford. To say in the least, the end in completely unexpected. It makes you think that the world is over, and it takes time to adjust to the fact that this is"just a movie". But a terrificly wonderful movie at that. Heart breaking and wonderfully filmed, the "Children's Hour" is a terrific movie with outstanding actresses. Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MaClaine light up the screen! A definite 10.

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Tiffanysfunnyface from Area 52
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A film that shows how a simple lie can unravel the lives of everyone around it. Shirley MacClaine truly captures the pain of unrequited love. The directing of the film brings intimately close with the characters. We see Audrey Hepburn like we've never seen her before, calm cool and collected a far cry from Holly Golightly. The child who plays Mary Tilford is truly evil quite an excellent little drama queen. Her grandmother also plays an excellent role we truly feel for her when she realises her mistakes. We feel her pain. This film shows how what we build up life can be so easily destroyed and it shows society's prejudiced against love. A definite must see for the powerful acting.

school|girl|lesbian|private school|girls' school|teacher|kissing on a doorstep|kleptomania|kleptomaniac|no ending credits|death|pendant|child|love|secret|watching tv|mischief|mental disorder|tantrum|near death experience|homesickness|scream|yelling|whispering in ear|funeral|degradation|spreading rumor|rumor monger|guilt complex|guilt|courtroom|emotional breakdown|kissing|kiss|headmistress|recital|school bully|bullying|boyfriend girlfriend relationship|charm bracelet|bracelet|crying|bully|liar|lie|rumor|jealousy|reference to cleopatra|repressed love|doctor|kitchen|aunt niece relationship|fiance fiancee relationship|friendship|friendship between women|children|brat|bratty child|spoiled child|driving|grandmother granddaughter relationship|repressed homosexual|sexual repression|repression|closeted homosexual|little girl|suspicion|bigotry|prejudice|homophobia|homosexuality|dormitory|family relationships|grandmother|teacher student relationship|classroom|girls' boarding school|uniform|school uniform|keyhole|confession|suicide by hanging|accusation|punctuation in title|apostrophe in title|spoiled brat|controversy|false accusation|unrequited love|miscarriage of justice|melancholy|lesbianism|gossip|remake by original director|suicide|spanking|blackmail|hanging|boarding school|broken engagement|remake|scandal|homosexual|tragedy|death of friend|based on play|

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Certifications:
Argentina:16 / Australia:MA / Canada:18A / Finland:K-16 / Portugal:M/12 / Sweden:15 / UK:X (original rating) / UK:12 (video rating) (2004) / USA:Not Rated / USA:Approved (certificate #20107) / West Germany:16 (f) (original rating) / West Germany:12 (f) (re-rating)