His Movie Review: The Children’s Hour (1961)

Why he watched it: considered a classic

His rating: 4 out of 5 stars

His review: It can be tempting, when watching older films, to hold them accountable to contemporary expectations. Older films that challenged stereotypes or engaged in taboo topics, at the time, can be seen now as not pushing the boundaries far enough; and thus, reinforcing the very perceptions they are challenging. We have to view them within the context of their times, not as a justification for their perceived limits, but as understanding of the barriers they were overcoming.

Films about LGBT issues fit this category. By just having a) LGBT character as a component of the film and b) not directly condemning that LGBT character (and hence linking their condemnation to their LGBT status), an older film was indeed pushing their audience to think about their prejudices, even if they did not push the boundary as far as contemporary audiences expect. They should be critiqued for their limits, certainly, but not condemned; and their quality as a film overall should be not ignored.

This film fits that category—while its story about a woman condemned, and personally struggling, with her feelings for her closest friend ultimately buckles at the end, it really does raise questions about identify that makes it still worthy of viewing. I think this film is indeed subversive, in that it is using a surface message about the dangers of prejudice and false accusations to make the audience sympathetic to a lesbian character. I admire that this film didn’t ultimately explain away Martha’s (Shirley MacLaine) feelings for Karen (Audrey Hepburn) to allow the audience to escape the dilemma of caring for Martha.

What complicates this movie is a) Martha’s suicide at the end and b) how Martha’s admission to Karen about her feelings focuses us on Karen’s role in this situation. Is Martha’s suicide a narrative device to provide the final condemnation of the community’s actions? Or does it come from Martha’s inability to accept who she is? Martha’s confession to Karen is a powerful scene, one of the most mesmerizing I’ve ever seen. MacLaine is amazing in moving us through Martha’s desperate struggle to admit how she feels, while at the same time feeling the destructive shame she has been taught to link to that truth.

I feel that the suicide, as a narrative device, fails because it doesn’t fit the character. Martha’s devotion to Karen would not have her committing suicide in the house she shares with Karen, knowing that Karen would find her. She’d want to rescue Martha from the situation and not have her suffer. She’d run away, as she’d proposed earlier, take the shame with her, and thus leave Karen free to rebuild her life with Dr. Joe (James Garner). Perhaps she’d commit suicide, but not in the house, and not before setting Karen free of the stigma Martha cannot escape.

This movie, for me. is not about the community and the mean-spirited child that started it all (and her bad acting). It is about Martha and Karen’s relationship. The questions I ponder at the end are about Karen. Could she have lived so long with Martha’s affections and not wondered about Martha’s feelings, even if Karen avoided thinking about them? Once the accusation was made, and she continues to avoid the reality of it, even after Martha’s confession, does Karen become complicit in Martha’s suicide? When Martha does confess, Karen’s response is not acceptance or understanding, but to continually tell Martha ‘it isn’t true’. Is she really trying to help Martha, or she fighting to deny what she knows is true; and in doing this, reinforces Martha’s shame? I think the director wants us to see Karen’s silent walk from the cemetery as a final condemnation of the community, that they pushed Martha to kill herself. For me, it was a woman walking from the grave of her closest friend who is still coming to terms with her role in her friend’s death. She can no longer blame the community—she must look to herself. Did her own prejudices blind her to her friend’s pain? Did she fail to truly love her friend?