La signora Skeffington

Bette Davis and Richard Waring are the Trellis siblings, an old name and dwindling money. They also have the snobbery that comes from having a name that goes back to the 17th century in terms of residence on the North American continent. Both their lives get forever intertwined with that of Claude Rains, Mr. Skeffington.

Fanny Trellis Skeffington is one of Bette Davis's best screen performances. She's a shallow woman who is a great beauty and enjoys all the flattery that a stream of men give her. Waring to keep up with his lifestyle goes to work for investment banker Skeffington and winds up embezzling a considerable sum of money.

Rains is ready to prosecute, but Davis intercedes and marries Rains who is as entranced as everyone else is with her beauty. They have one rocky marriage that produces a daughter, Majorie Riordan, but little else in the way of happiness for either.

If Mr. Skeffington has a fault it's that Rains is sometimes just to good to be true. For what he put up with, if he were a Christian, he'd be a candidate for sainthood.

Another thing I like about Mr. Skeffington is that it does tackle the issue of anti-Semitism head-on. Waring is a Jew hater as are many of Davis's upper crust admirers. Rains keeps a cheerful look on his face, but because he's that brilliant an actor, you can see the pain registering.

Mr. Skeffington was nominated for two Academy Awards. Bette Davis got one of her nominations for Best Actress, but lost to Ingrid Bergman for Gaslight. And Rains was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but he lost to Barry Fitzgerald in Going My Way.

Warner Brothers gave Davis a great group of supporting players and among the ones I like are Dorothy Peterson as her loyal maid, George Coulouris as a psychiatrist who gave her some words of wisdom like a Dutch Uncle, and Walter Abel as her wise cousin who is the catalyst for some positive change in her in the end.

Mr. Skeffington is Bette Davis at her best and always finds a place in the top 10 of her screen roles.

Bette Davis was an actress. She did not play herself over and over but reinvented herself in each film she made. Mr Skeffington is curiously names after Claude Rains character Mr Skeffington, like Dorothy Arzner's Christopher Strong, a film about Cynthia Darrington ( Katherine Hepburn). Davis plays a Fanny, a woman of less than average intelligence, one afraid of being a woman, mostly because of the attention paid to her by ridiculous suitors, and a life spent in sucking up to them and learning how to get what she wants because of their stupidity. Finally she is truly loved by Mr Skellington (Claude Rains). Nevertheless she still feels embarassed having a baby so she goes back east to hid her growing body. Whatever made her into the fragile and distant creature she truly is underneath her silly flirtations and airs, she realizes in the end the shallowness of her fan club and the true love of the man who loves her no matter what. She conveys the bunglings of a woman caught up in her appearance and the futility of living as an image brilliantly. Well done Bette! You still outshine all actresses living!

'Mr Skeffington', by Elizabeth, came to the screen in 1944 with Claude Rains in the title role, Bette Davis as Fanny, Richard Waring as Trippy, Jerome Cowan as Edward, and others.

An absorbing and entertaining novel could only be buoyed up by the playing of Bette Davis as the self-absorbed Miss Trellis, who has no knowledge of the real world as it affects her friends and her family. Trippy's money problems mean as little to her as the attentions of her tribe of young men. Fanny losing her beauty would be her greatest calamity ...

As Job Skeffington, Trippy's understanding boss, Claude Rains adds a touch of dryness and dignity to the role. The teaming between Rains and Davis gives plenty of zip to the film and makes the whole thing hugely enjoyable - there is a tragic undercurrent to this story that both actors could carry off completely.

'Mr Skeffington' is excellent and one of those great 1940s wallows they just don't make anymore [sigh].

... That would be Fanny Trellis, later Skeffington. She has all of these male admirers and yet she can't seem to talk about anything more interesting than her manicure. I mean, her looks won't last forever, right? Right. That is what this film is all about. Fanny has a brother, Trippy, that bests her in the "waste of flesh" department. He spends all of Fanny's and his inheritance, is forced to get a job, and is caught embezzling from his employer, Mr. Skeffington, who is smitten by Fanny. Why, I have no idea.

So forget the synopsis that says "Popular and beautiful Fanny Trellis is forced into a loveless marriage with an older man, Jewish banker Job Skeffington, in order to save her beloved brother Trippy from an embezzlement charge". That is not what happens. Job Skeffington tells Fanny he will give Trippy time to repay the debt, and then months go by and he hasn't brought the subject up again at all. When Fanny finds out that Job is the secret admirer who commissioned a painting of her, SHE pursues HIM for marriage - not that he is anything less than enthusiastic - and she does it ONLY to save her brother.

But then the weirdest thing happens. Trippy has been angry at Skeffington because HE stole from Skeffington and got caught. He is even angrier when he finds out Fanny married Job and rescued him and packs off to England to fight in WWI, which the US has not joined yet. So the Skeffington marriage limps along on four square wheels for a couple years. A daughter is born that has none of mom's looks and most fortunately, none of her lack of character. Then the notice comes that Trippy has died in the war, and now Fanny completely ices out Job. There is the eventual divorce. Mom packs off little Fanny to live with her father so as to be able to maintain her active dating life without a reminder of how old she actually is.

And then comes the day when Fanny contracts diphtheria while out on a sailing outing with a beau twenty years her junior. And diphtheria is no beauty treatment. Post diphtheria Fanny is balding, wrinkled, and matronly figured. I have no idea how diphtheria gives you osteoporosis, but from her posture, that's what happened. And now Fanny finds out what exactly she has in male interest and personal character without her beauty - zip, zilch, nada.

Maybe this is a pretty conventional story, but Bette Davis is really great as Fanny. The makeup and fashion department have to be given credit here too. Ironically, Bette Davis was a knockout in her 20s and early 30s, but her looks fell apart in record time. She was already going downhill by the time this film was made, in 1944. Yet she truly looks mid to early 20s in the first part of the film. And she truly looks 45-55 in the last part of the film.

WWII is brought into the plot of this film in a sideways sort of way, and it is refreshing to see a film made during wartime that does not get oppressively patriotic. Claude Rains excels as the used and abused financial wizard Job Skeffington. He is endearing as the loving father and the rejected husband. And yet he is not overly melodramatic. In fact he injects quite a bit of subtle humor into the role. Honorable mention to Walter Abel as George Trellis, Fanny's and Trippy's cousin, who must have gotten down on his knees every night and thanked his lucky stars that in spite of common grandparents, he has nothing in common with either of his cousins.

Highly recommended.

After "Now Voyager" this is my favorite film of Davis. If you see the short subject on this film, the director said Davis loved a challenge and she took on the role of the "too pretty" Fanny Trellis because she felt she could "pull it off"... and in my humble opinion, she did that very well indeed. Some say she had a "pretentious" and "irritating" character, it is indeed the character of Fanny Trellis who is both pretentious and irritating. That is built into the character herself. I had a relative who behaved just as she did in this film. Davis especially reminded me of this aunt of mine when she visits Mr. Skeffington in his office when war is declared. She was artificially fragile, overly made-up, and oh too charming. Davis was brilliant in her portrayal of Fanny as the spoiled, fussy, prissy young woman who the "men" really go after.... but unlike today where most men are after physical attributes, it is Fanny's charm and her apparent wealth they are also attracted to. In reality, her character has none of these things.... it is an illusion, just as her life is an illusion. I think she did a marvelous job in a demanding and difficult role. The film also has one of the most remarkable music scores on film. Every scene is perfectly synchronized by Franz Waxman's magnificent score.