Mr. Skeffington (1944)

Sadly Over-hyped

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Blistering performances.

Critic James Agee, when reviewing the film in 1944, felt it was an overwrought story made to manipulate female moviegoers. Not sure if I agree with his assessment, but I do think Bette Davis is miscast as a gorgeous woman. It would have worked better with someone like Vivien Leigh or Gene Tierney-- any actress whose beauty was obvious and too striking to ignore. Or perhaps someone like Ingrid Bergman would have done an excellent job. And maybe in place of Rains, they could have reunited her with Boyer. Joan Fontaine (in Warners' remake of THE CONSTANT NYMPH a year earlier) might also have been acceptable.But Davis just does not work for me in this role. In NOW, VOYAGER she starts as an ugly duckling and we know that even despite her metamorphosis, she still has all those ugly insecurities inside-- that's sort of what bonds her to the young girl later on in the picture. However, in MR. SKEFFINGTON there is not supposed to be any doubt that she's a confident and alluring woman. I feel what we get here is play-acting, a vainglorious actress in a less- than-noble attempt to play a great screen siren. It's just not believable at all, no matter how much they dress her up.

So huffs Bette Davis, in a high affected voice, as the shallow Mrs. of Claude Rains' stately Jewish banker, as she realizes--too late!--that she has a responsibility to the good man who genuinely loves her. Based on a story by "Elizabeth," whoever that was, this is a luxe Warners melodrama designed to show off Bette. She's good, but doesn't show a great deal of range here, hampered by a screenplay that limits her to vain and stupid. It's also not entirely credible that her face would be the one that enraptures all of New York from approximately 1914 to 1935, and the picture's severely hampered by a musical score--by Franz Waxman, whom I usually like--that underlines everything and removes whatever subtlety there might have been. The glory of the film is Rains, who artfully underplays, and some fun supporting actors turn up--John Alexander, George Colouris, even Dolores Gray in one plot-unrelated bit. The Warners trappings are lush, and Vincent Sherman's direction is a little slow, but that's not a bad choice for this soapy material.

A heartbreaking story of vanity, greed, and love. It would have been an ever richer experience had it not been censored by the War Department during WW II. The original script was also a commentary about anti-Semitism. Skeffington is a Jew. His beautiful wife,as well as her pre-marital suitors, humiliate Skeffington as the suitors continue to court her, unabated, even after the wedding. Undoubtedly, the anti-Semitism of the era was an element of the disrespect so many of the other characters show toward Skeffington. Yet the War Dept. required that aspect of the plot to be cut, since much of our public publicity campaign against the Nazis was based on their anti-Semitism, and the censors determined that showing anti-Semitism in the US would undercut the message the War Department was conveying about the Third Reich. Despite this, it's a well-crafted film, funny in places, heartbreaking in others. Rains' greatest performance. Not Bette Davis's best, but her grudging transformation from vain beauty to an ugly hag with no friends who finally recognizes real love is a real tear jerker--in the best sense.

This one is all Bette Davis' movie. As good a role as Claude Rains plays, he's the anchor of the film, he's secondary to Davis' performance.A lady back in the first world war, in her mid 20's, thinks she's the bee's knees. All the men come to court her but she has no interest in their affections. She just likes the attention. Her brother gets in trouble with stocks selling/buying and she proceeds to bail him out by marrying his rich boss...Mr. Skeffington.From their what you get is a woman who cares very little for the love her husband gives her, its just what he can give her and their stature in society. Problem is that he's a real nice guy and genuinely cares for her. Her main concern, her vanity.Time takes it toll through the years and her vanity and their marriage fails and she begins to see what she was really about throughout her life...her looks/appearance.This is not even close to my favorite Bette Davis film but she does give a winner of a performance. She's as "Bette Davis" in this film as she is in any other of her films. For a long melodrama, you can't go wrong with this one.