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Imserba Webstore - These Three [VHS]
![These Three [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QRV40Q60L._SL160_.jpg)
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $50.00
Your Save: $ ( % )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
Starring: Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Joel McCrea, Catherine Doucet, Alma Kruger
Directed By: William Wyler
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302452952
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6302452953
Label: Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Hbo Home Video
Release Date: 1997-09-23
Running Time: 93
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1936-03-18
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Powerful William Wyler drama rivals the best of Hitchcock!
Comment: In 1934 noted American playwright Lillian Hellman introduced her play "The Children's Hour" to audiences around the world. Over the next couple of years the play would become a substantial hit. The central theme of "The Children's Hour" is what happens when two young headmistresses are accused of having a lesbian affair by a disgruntled young student. Of course the charges are not true but that will not stop the powers that be in town to destroy everything the two young women have worked so very hard to create. In 1936, producer Samuel Goldwyn and director William Wyler would bring this powerful play to the silver screen. SInce something called The Production Code (a set of motion picture industry censorship guidelines) forbade the subject of lesbianism to be broached in films, Goldwyn and Wyler decided to change the name of the film to "These Three" and substituted the charges of lesbianism between the two teachers to a heterosexual love triangle involving the two young teachers and a doctor in town who is the fiancee of one of them. As it turns out these changes did not detract from "These Three" one little bit.
"These Three" (a rather odd name for a film, don't you think?) stars Merle Oberlon and Miriam Hopkins as recently graduated young teachers who come to town with visions of creating a school in a run down old house that one of them has inherited from her grandmother. Shortly after they arrive in town the girls meet up with a local doctor named Joe Cardin (Joel McCrea) who embraces the idea of the school and vows to help them make it become a reality. In the course of renovating the property Dr. Joe and Karen Wright (Oberlon) fall head over heels for each other. Meanwhile, Martha Dobie (Hopkins) also has feelings for the dashing young medic but vows to keep her feelings to herself rather than compete for his affections with her best friend. Funding for the school was obtained by the generous donation of the town's most prominent citizen Mrs. Amelia Tilford (Alma Kruger) who promises to send her young granddaughter to the school. Bonita Granville plays young Mary Tilford who is evil incarnate. Most critics agree that it is Granville who steals the show in this film. Mary is not at all happy in this school. She is in an incorrigible brat who as Dr. Cardin observes at one point in the movie could use a good dose of the hairbrush. It is Mary who conjures up and spreads the story about the alleged love triangle going on within the confines of the school. As one might expect the results are devastating for just about everyone involved in this unhappy incident.
Throughout the course of "These Three" my wife and I kept turning to each other and remarking just how fabulous this film is. The acting is first rate by virtually every single person in this movie including several of the children. A special hats off to Marcia Mae Jones who plays the part of schoolgirl Rosalie Wells. You will also find a very young Walter Brennan as well as Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West in 'The Wizard of Oz") with bit roles in this film.
My wife and I continue to be amazed at the quality of the films that were made in the 1930's and 1940's. "These Three" is just another example of what happens when great writing and fine acting come together. As I mentioned in the headline above, "These Three" certainly rivals anything that the great Alfred Hitchcock ever made. Highly recommended!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Incredible That This Isn't Available On DVD!!
Comment: Perhaps if I have time in the future I will write a full review on this truly superb film. For now, let me just state that in my mind there is no question that "These Three" is absolutely one of the finest films of the 1930's (or any decade), and it just burns me that you cannot purchase it in DVD format! If I were to compile a list of those films not on DVD which most deserve to be, this one would be #1. What does it say about modern society's lack of artistic appreciation that almost all the current trash produced is quickly available in the latest, greatest technology, while a masterpiece like "These Three" is not deemed of sufficient merit or demand to even make the cut? Honestly disgusting.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Child actress Bonita Granville
Comment: Bonita Granville did an absolutely excellent job playing the role of a 12 to 13 year old spoiled school girl who ruins the lives of three young adults by making up malicious lies about them.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing film for 1936
Comment: I just saw this movie for the first time and I was greatly impressed. I guess what impressed me the most was how the writer and director could cover such a topic so well back in 1936. I was informed that the play, by Lillian Hellman, had an even more notorious subject matter but this movie got the point across. The story, in brief, is that of two college graduate women who decide to open a girl's school in a small New England community. Early on in the movie we meet a doctor (Joel McCrea) who falls in love with one of the women. The other woman secretly loves him too but reveals this to no one. There comes a point when a set of circumstances and gossip enable one of the students to make false accusations about the three adults. A scandal breaks out and I'll leave it at that. The point of the movie, at least for me, was how lies, gossip and inuendos can destroy perfectly (or almost perfectly) innocent people. The point is well made in "These Three".
The acting is good and we can appreciate many subtleties in how the actors look and interact with one another. However, the best performances come from the devilish kids who create the scandal. I noticed two familiar actors whose names were not on the opening credits; Walter Brennan and Margaret Hamilton, both of who became far more famous that the stars.
The Hellman play, as I understand it, dealt with a lesbian relationship between the two women which was obviously too much for Hollywood in 1936. I understand it was this relationship that WAS used in the later movie "The Children's Hour" which was also based on the Hellman play. I haven't seen that movie but it certainly explains why I never saw it when I was growing up. (I heard of it and wondered, from the title, why I hadn't had the opportunity to see what I thought was a children's movie). Still, the suggestion of an immoral relationship involving one man and two women was risque enough. Having juvenile girls discussing these things was even more so. I noticed when "THE END" came on the screen there was a notation below that said "Approved by the National Film Board" or words to that effect. Maybe I never noticed that phrase in older movies before. I certainly noticed it on this one, though.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play
Comment: Although because of censorship problems, the screen adaptation of Hellman's play, couldn't be as faithful to the source, as the 1961 movie version, also directed by Wyler, anyhow this is an oustanding picture.This because all it's about is the effect of a malicious lie in a group of people's lives, and I must say that watching both versions the other day on TCM, this is superior to the 1961 remake. The children's performances are outstanding, especially brattish and malevollous Bonita Granville...the three leads (Hopkins, Oberon and McCrea) are excellent too....and so are Catherine Doucet, as the unbearable aunt Lily and Alma Kruger as Granville's grandmother. Once more we must thank producer Sam Goldwyn, for trying to raise the american cinema's level by producing such great and high quality pictures, like this one, "Dodsworth", "Wuthering Heights", et al. A truly powerful movie.
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