Mr. Skeffington (1944)

Best movie of this year hands down!

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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.

Mr.Skeffington is directed by Vincent Sherman,produced by Jack L.Warner and the Epstein brother Julius and Phillip(who also both wrote the screenplay)based on the novel by Elizabeth Von Arnim, has music by Franz Waxman and stars Bette Davis,Claude Rains,Walter Abel and Richard Waring.Without a doubt this is one of the saddest love stories ever filmed,mostly due to the heartbreaking performance by the wonderful Claude Rains.In his hands Mr.Skeffington is a kind,large hearted,all round good man who's love of his life does not love him back.He's all hurt expressions and puppy dog eyes,making him so adorable you want to gather him up into your arms and hug him.Bette holds her own against Rains sympathetic Skeffington,switching from girlish charm one moment,to cold-hearted and cruel woman the next.Yet she manages a neat trick in that we never actually fully hate her despite the things she does.Mr.Skeffington is much more than just a tale of unrequited love,it takes in both world wars and prohibition as well.Beginning in New York in 1914,Mr.Skeffington tells the story of famous,society beauty,Fanny Trellis(Bette Davis)and her adored brother Trippy(Richard Waring).They are going broke following their fathers death,however both keep up the facade they are still wealthy.Unbeknown to Fanny Trippy has been embezzling funds from his boss,Job Skeffington(Claude Rains).Mr.Skeffington calls on the pair one night and quite gently tells Fanny that he'll allow Trippy to pay him back and keep it out of the public eye.Fanny isn't quite satisfied with that and turns on the charm full volume and ends up making Skeffington fall in love with her.He adores her more than anything else,not realising she has only done it so she can protect Trippy and give him money from her new wealth as Mrs.Skeffington.Trippy however hates Skeffington and he leaves to join the air corps at the outbreak of World War One.Soon the Skeffington marriage becomes intolerable with Fanny seeing other men and ignoring their daughter,who ends up basically being raised by Job and Fanny's cousin George(Walter Abel).Job never stops loving her and when illness leaves her disfigured she remembers his words "A woman is beautiful when she's loved...and only then".Deeply moving with two unforgettable lead performances,this is a tearjerker of the highest order,well worth watching.

Mr. Skeffington (1944)A full blooded romance, tragic and comic, with political and personal points made for the final two years of the war against the Nazis. Yes it has Bette Davis and Claude Rains (and a huge cast of first rate secondaries). Yes it has Ernest Haller behind the camera, and Franz Waxman in charge of music. Yes the screenplay was written by the incomparable Epstein brothers (most famous for "Casablanca"). And yes it has a director who is better known for his affairs with Joan Crawford and Rita Hayworth, Vincent Sherman.Sherman surely gets the credit for pulling off all these great scenes, keeping the flow over the decades, and making the ending worth the long path getting there. But he had the best support in the world, Warner Bros. being at its studio machinery peak. And it's high drama material of course, dealing with every big topic from family loyalty to greed to vanity to true friendship to redemption. And it covers all the big historical moments (some very briefly, or with comic indifference) like WWI, the Crash, the Depression, and the beginning of WWII. The final scenes are further examples of the movies subtly (or not so subtly) pressing the case for American involvement in the war.As wonderful as Rains is in his somewhat restrained role (it is commented on that he never smiles and has sad eyes, both true), this is a Bette Davis movie. She is not only in nearly every scenes, she's goes through an incredible range of moods. She is supposed to play an unparalleled beauty, and there was some question whether she was the right kind of woman for that role. She has command, charisma, and confidence enough, for sure, but she doesn't radiate the way a Garbo does. But then, Garbo couldn't act like Davis, not by half for this kind of role, and Davis makes the story something more complicated. One of the lasting themes is how beauty depends on love, or on being loved, and so she has beauty in excess because she is loved (or apparently loved) by so many.This is a melodrama of the best kind, like "The Little Foxes" or "Now Voyager." Yes, all Davis movies. She made these stories bigger than life because she, somehow, was bigger than life. But there are a million other things to watch happening, too, from lots of snappy (and witty) dialog to a slick and fluid photography. Note, if you have time, the two steps leading from the large entry parlor of the house where most of the movie is set down to the parlor. It's here, looking up and looking down, or moving up or down, that many of the major events of the movie have their roots. Including during the last few minutes.

No doubt about it, Fanny Trellis Skeffington is a despicable character. She's the kind of person who in real life would be the kind you love to hate, totally self centered and unabashedly out for herself. It's the kind of role an actress like Bette Davis can work wonders with, and in this one, she's remarkable. Perhaps as much as the acting, I was also struck by the competence of the makeup department in aging her character, along with those family members and suitors who endured the story arc throughout the decades. The striking thing however as I think about it now, is how the concept of 'old' has been redefined from the 1940's to the present. Fanny and her contemporaries considered themselves old at fifty (maybe even older at half a century). To my mind, the fifty year old Fanny looked like she could have been seventy, and even then, not looking nearly as good as someone like say, Raquel Welch who turns seventy this year.Being the insufferable snob that she was, Fanny does get her comeuppance in sufficient doses, though too late in life to have made her remorse meaningful. Dr. Byles is dead on when he orders Fanny to "Sit down, I haven't earned my fee yet". You know, that kind of honesty might be grounds for a lawsuit today for making the patient feel bad. But for sheer brutal honesty, there's namesake daughter Fanny (Marjorie Riordan) who cuttingly remarks "Have I a mother"?, excoriating Davis's character for her inability to be beautiful AND a mom.Claude Rains turns in another superb performance; he earned my admiration a long time ago for that great turn in "Casablanca" as Captain Renault. Funny, but he looked older and heavier here than in the Casablance gig, but then again, I go back to my earlier statement about how the actors wore their characters.Fans of Davis and Rains should be reasonably pleased by their work here, each manages a fair amount of screen time and displays their craft well. One of the things I found interesting was the way the picture employed the device, one might consider it a maguffin, of the character frequently mentioned but never seen, Miss Fanny's oft dismissed luncheon companion Janie Clarkson.