Audrey Hepburn's final black and white film.
Doris Day was considered to play one of two female leads.
Miriam Hopkins who played Martha in the original film These Three played the part of Martha's Aunt Lily. Merle Oberon, who played Karen in the original film, turned down the part of Mrs. Tilford.
William Wyler cut several scenes hinting at Martha's homosexuality for fear of not receiving the seal of approval from the Motion Picture Production Code. At the time, any story about homosexuality was forbidden by the production code.
Program notes on back of both of US VHS and DVD editions claim that Katharine Hepburn was sought for one of lead roles that eventually went to Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, both of whom played teachers newly-graduated from college. By early Sixties, Hepburn was far too old for either role and, if ever actually considered for a part in the movie, would have been suitable only for far more mature roles played by Miriam Hopkins or, more likely, Fay Bainter.
Screenwriter John Michael Hayes was so faithful to Lillian Hellman's play that large chunks of the dialogue are identical to the dialogue in These Three, the 1936 film version of The Children's Hour, for which Lillian Hellman herself wrote the adaptation and screenplay - this, despite the fact that These Three was a watered-down, censored version of The Children's Hour.
Shirley MacLaine, in the documentary The Celluloid Closet, said that nobody on the set of The Children's Hour discussed the ramifications of the issues regarding homosexuality that are implied, but never spoken about outright, in the film. She said, "none of us were really aware. We might have been forerunners, but we weren't really, because we didn't do the picture right. We were in the mindset of not understanding what we were basically doing. These days, there would be a tremendous outcry, as well there should be. Why would Martha break down and say, 'Oh my god, what's wrong with me, I'm so polluted, I've ruined you.' She would fight! She would fight for her budding preference. And when you look at it, to have Martha play that scene - and no one questioned it - what that meant, or what the alternatives could have been underneath the dialog, it's mind boggling. The profundity of this subject was not in the lexicon of our rehearsal period. Audrey and I never talked about this. Isn't that amazing. Truly amazing."
The Broadway production of "The Children's Hour" by Lillian Hellman opened at the Maxine Elliott's Theatre on November 20, 1934 and ran for 691 performances.
The film gets its name from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.