Today's Cinema Sunday takes a look at a movie that happened to catch on TCM one day. It's an odd movie starring a classic film actress I've always found to be a bit odd herself.
The film is called Mr. Skeffington, a 1944 American drama. Claude Raines is the titular Mr. Skeffington but Claude isn't actually the star and the film isn't actually about Mr. Skeffington. Rather the film stars Bette Davis as his wife, Fanny.
In 1914, spoiled Fanny Trellis is a renowned beauty with many suitors. She loves her brother Trippy and would do anything for him. When Trippy embezzles money from his employer Job Skeffington, Fanny pursues and marries the lovestruck Skeffington to save her brother from going to jail. Trippy, it turns out, is anti-semitic as all get out and is disgusted his sister marries a Jewish man. He leaves the country to go fight in World War I where he gets killed.
Job loves Fanny but Fanny does not feel the same. She has a child with him but otherwise, the marriage is a loveless one as far as Fanny is concerned.
Still radiantly beautiful, Fanny loves the role of the wealthy socialite, stringing along a persistent quartet of suitors who are unfazed by her marriage as well as much younger lovers.
When a lonely Job finds solace with his secretaries, Fanny hypocritically divorces him, taking him for almost all his money. Job heads off to Europe.
Wealthy and now unmarried, Fanny has a series of affairs.
Even as she grows older, Fanny remains very beautiful. Until she is afflicted with diphtheria. The disease ravages her appearance, aging her. She no longer possesses the radiant beauty of her youth. As a very shallow person, this leaves Fanny with nothing. Alone in the cavernous home that is now her prison, the painting of her on the wall from her youth torments her and the mirrors mock her.
Then Mr. Skeffington returns. He had been a guest of the Nazis in a Jewish concentration camp. He avoided execution but the experience left him aged, crippled and blind.
Fanny tells her maid that "Mr. Skeffington has come home."
Job had once, long ago, told Fanny that, "A woman is beautiful only when she is loved." Fanny finally realizes the truth of it.
Bette Davis has always been an intriguing persona from the early days of Hollywood. She had a distinctive look about her, particularly her wide, expressive eyes. (Which became the subject of a 1980s song by Kim Carnes, "Bette Davis Eyes".)
Her mannerisms as an actor were brittle, like broken glass, which is why I suppose she was frequently cast to play unsympathetic, sardonic characters. And Fanny Skeffington is a most unsympathetic character.
Fanny is the ultimate in shallow, getting by on her good looks with little or no incentive to feel empathy for others. Her marriage to Job Skeffington is a transactional affair, to help her brother get out of trouble. It is a transaction that adds considerable wealth to her good looks which affords Fanny more opportunities to act selfishly and shamelessly.
This is not a nice person to center a movie around.
What really intrigues me about this movie is what happens to Fanny after the diptheria hits. Make up and special effects before the era of CGI always fascinates me. Bette Davis was only in her mid 30s when she shot Mr. Skeffington but the diptheria ages Fanny to look more like a women in her 60s. The make up used to age her is not layered on but is effective at making Davis look way older than her actual years. The lighting and the black and white cinematography give Davis an almost death like pallor, adding to the aging effect.
My research into this movie discovered that Bette Davis's performance might have been "helped" by some strange, bad stuff going on in her life at the time.
In August 1943, Davis' husband Arthur Farnsworth collapsed while walking along a Hollywood street, and died two days later. An autopsy revealed that his fall had been caused by a skull fracture he had suffered two weeks earlier.
Davis testified before an inquest that she knew of no event that might have caused the injury. A finding of accidental death was reached.
Davis wanted to withdraw from Mr. Skeffington but Jack Warner talked her into staying with the movie.
Bette Davis's temperament on the set of Mr. Skeffington was not good. While Davis had gained a reputation for being forthright and demanding, her behavior on set was erratic. She refused to film certain scenes, changed up dialogue and basically made the lives of the director, the writer and her fellow actors a living hell.
It appears someone had enough.
The eye wash in Bette Davis' dressing room was poisoned, causing her extreme pain.
Police were called in to investigate but they had a problem of too many suspects. As director Director Vincent Sherman told the detectives, "If you asked everyone on the set who would have committed such a thing, everyone would raise their hand!"
The role of Fanny earned Bette Davis an Oscar nomination for Best Actress although some reviewers at the time criticized Davis's performance as excessive.
As I watched Mr. Skeffington, I thought Bette Davis was tearing into this role like it was a glazed Easter ham but my prior experience with seeing Bette Davis in a movie ("Now, Voyager" and "All About Eve") led me to think that Bette was just being herself.
Let's wrap up today's post with "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes.
By all accounts, Bette Davis did not like this song.
That's that for today's Cinema Sunday. Until next time, remember to be good to one another.
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