How did the Production Code change the story of These Three?

In the 1936 film These Three, director William Wyler was forced to alter the plot of Lillian Hellman’s original play, The Children’s Hour, to comply with the strictures of the Production Code.

The original play centers on a malicious student who destroys the lives of two schoolteachers by falsely accusing them of being lesbians. Because the Production Code enforced strict moral standards and prohibited the depiction of certain controversial subjects, the film adaptation replaced these accusations of lesbianism with allegations of an immoral heterosexual relationship.1

Wyler eventually revisited the material in his 1961 film, also titled The Children’s Hour, where he was finally able to restore the original plot elements that had been censored decades earlier.2