Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn are superb in William Wyler’s Oscar-nominated film, which follows the devastating consequences of a lie told by a spiteful child in a boarding school. Based on the Lillian Hellman play and previously adapted by Wyler in 1936 (but without a hint of the rumored lesbian relationship at the film’s center), the legendary director took advantage of the changing times in 1961 and of the Hays Codes deteriorating influence on what type of content filmmakers were allowed to show on screen. The result is both a more faithful adaptation of the play and a heartbreaking melodrama about a vicious slander and life in the closet.