THE CHILDREN'S HOUR (1961) M/f, one-smacker, s, w

Based on Lillian Hellmans play of the same name: Best friends Karen Wright and Martha Dobie are headmistresses at a successful private school for girls in New England. Mary Tilford, a spiteful, angry child, tells her grandmother that Martha's Aunt Lily thought those feelings were "unnatural." Grandma believes her and pulls Mary out of school. The word quickly spreads and within days Karen and Martha are faced with empty classrooms...

In the scene in question, naughty Mary Tilford plays ill, so Dr. Cardin gets called and when he discovers that she made it up, he gives her an extremely sound smack on her behind.


NOTE: The play was filmed before, 1936, under the title "THESE THREE", also directed by William Wyler, and there Bonita Granville received for her performance as Mary not only an Oscar nomination but also a very sound smack by Joel McCrea


This link was sent to me by Cinndunc.thepolicyoftruth posted the clip on youtube. All credit goes to them.


The original clip unfortunately was posted with a rare codec. That codec cannot be edited with VLC media player, only audio remains. It cannot be converted also without extreme loss of visibilty.

therefore I must post the entire clip. The snippet in question starts at 7:48



smacker: James Garner
smackee: Karen Balkin



director: William wyler ("Ben Hur")