alt.sex

movie tie-ins

authors index

books index

e-mail

home

LILLIAN HELLMAN
The Children's Hour

click to enlarge

Four Square, London, 1962
(price: 2/6; 128 pages)

first published in England by Hamish Hamilton in 1937

dedication: For D Hammett with thanks

The blurb on the back:

A fine moving play examining the tragedy which follows the slanderous rumour of a Lesbian relationship between two school-mistresses. The malicious story spread by a neurotic girl leads to a lawsuit, the destruction of the school, and to the death of one of the women.

opening lines:
A room in the Wright-Dobie School for Girls, a converted farm-house eighteen miles from the town of Lancet.

Dated? Well, of course it’s dated. I mean, I’m sure that a teacher in an American girls’ school would still get in trouble if she were outed as a lesbian, but I have my doubts that the story would result in quite such an overblown melodrama as this.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the film – it’s got Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, after all – but the play-script on the page is hardly scintillating. Probably for historical interest only.

When did you last fuck your teacher?

ARTISTIC MERIT: 3/5
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 2/5
HIPNESS QUOTIENT: 3/5

like this? try this...

Women's Barracks
alt.sex
movie tie-ins
home