Mr. Skeffington (1944) - film review

With a host of eligible young bachelors throwing themselves at her feet, socialite beauty Fanny Trellis surprises everyone by marrying a middle-aged Jewish stockbroker named Job Skeffington.  After her brother defrauded Skeffington whilst in his employ, Fanny felt she had no option but to marry the older man, even though she has no feelings for him.  Skeffington, by contrast, is infatuated with Fanny and will do anything to make her happy.  Fanny’s brother is so disgusted by the marriage that he enlists as a fighter pilot in WWI, and promptly gets himself killed.  Receiving this news, Fanny ceases to feel any obligation towards her husband and, on learning that he has been entertaining his secretaries in his spare time, she quickly divorces him.  As Skeffington goes off to Germany to start a new life with their infant daughter, Fanny returns to her carefree socialite life, rejoicing in the ease with which she can still lure young men into her boudoir.  But then disaster strikes.  Fanny contracts diphtheria and overnight she ages twenty years.  Time has finally caught up with her...

What this shameless weepy may lack in subtlety and restraint it more than makes up for in style.  Yes, it’s a woman’s picture (a derogatory term if ever there was one), clearly intended to ensure the manufacturers of disposable handkerchiefs stayed in business during WWII,  but with the redoubtable Bette Davis at the helm and knocking out one of her legendary take-no-prisoners bravura performances, Mr. Skeffington has an irresistible appeal.   

The film would appear to be tailor-made for Bette Davis, an actress who, throughout her career, was highly self-conscious of her limitations in the beauty department.  Davis knew full well that her appeal lay not in her being the most glamorous thing in Hollywood but in her extraordinary skill as an actress and the fact that most female audiences could identify with her.   Whilst the character she portrays in this film isn’t particularly convincing on paper, Davis invests her with great pathos and she succeeds in transforming a rather trite story of a vain woman losing her beauty into an exceptionally poignant morality tale.  

To its credit, the film doesn’t take itself too seriously.  There is plenty of humour, some of which is quite dark, and most of which is underplayed, and this prevents the overly generous dollops of sentimentality from becoming too toe-curlingly saccharine.  Director Vincent Sherman succeeds in getting a great performance not only from Bette Davis, but also from her co-stars, Claude Rains and Walter Abel.  Rains is particularly memorable as the sympathetic unloved husband; he gives his character a humanity and down-to-earth realism which perfectly counter-points the tragic egoistical artificiality of the heroine played by Davis.  Despite its high schmaltz quotient, Mr. Skeffington is a surprisingly entertaining film, perhaps a tad silly in places, but wonderful therapy for anyone who feels the need to sob his or her guts out over the carpet when Cupid slips up.

© James Travers 2008

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