Review of These Three (1936) by Richard D — 04 Sep 2015

Here's a sterling example of how utterly misconceived the Hays Code was. William Wyler adapts Lillian Hellman's play "The Children's Hour", but the alleged lesbian relationship central to the plot of the play has to be replaced by a heterosexual love triangle between Joel McRea, Miriam Hopkins and Merle Oberon. Even with this substitution, the film can't come right out and say what the allegations are. The dialogue pussyfoots around it forcing anyone watching to work pretty hard to figure out exactly what the child is accusing them of. There's the absurdity of it all ... anyone watching the film has to get a pretty clear mental image of what has supposed to have happened in order to have any hope of following the plot, so what is the point of not letting them say it? Nobody is sheltered from anything. The film is just compromised.

Anyway, here's a great cast and a great director struggling to make a watchable film out of neutered material. They almost succeed.