 would never permit a film to focus on or even hint at lesbianism, Samuel Goldwyn was the only producer interested in purchasing the rights. He signed Hellman to adapt her play for the screen, and the playwright changed the lie about the two school teachers being lovers into a rumor that one of them had slept with the other's fiancé. Because the Production Code refused to allow Goldman to use the play's original title, it was changed to The Lie, and then These Three.[3]By the time Wyler was ready to film the remake, the Hays Code had been liberalized to allow  screenwriter John Michael Hayes to discreetly restore the suggestion of lesbianism without blatantly referring to it. Aside from having Martha hang rather than shoot herself as she had in the play, he remained faithful to Hellman's work, retaining substantial portions of her dialogue.In the 1996 documentary film The Celluloid Closet, Shirley MacLaine said she and Audrey Hepburn never talked about their characters' alleged homos