Editing Mr. Skeffington

{{short description|1944 film by Vincent Sherman}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Mr. Skeffington
| image          = Mr. Skeffington.jpg

| caption        = Original poster
| director       = [[Vincent Sherman]]
| writer         = [[Julius J. Epstein]]<br />[[Philip G. Epstein]]
| based_on       = {{based on|''Mr. Skeffington''<br>1940 novel|[[Mary Annette Beauchamp|”Elizabeth”]]}}
| producer       = Julius J. Epstein<br />Philip G. Epstein<br />[[Jack L. Warner]]
| starring       = [[Bette Davis]]<br />[[Claude Rains]]
| cinematography = [[Ernest Haller]]
| editing        = [[Ralph Dawson]]
| music          = [[Franz Waxman]]<br />[[Paul Dessau]]
| distributor    = [[Warner Brothers]]
| released       = {{Film date|1944|05|25}}
| runtime        = 145 min.
| country        = United States
| language       = English
| budget         = $1,521,000<ref name="warners">Warner Bros financial information in The William Schaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 24 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551</ref>
| gross          = $3,871,000<ref name="warners"/> (${{Formatprice|{{Inflation|US|3,871,000|1944}}}} in {{inflation-year|US}} dollars)
}}

'''''Mr. Skeffington''''' is a 1944 American [[Drama (film and television)|drama film]] directed by [[Vincent Sherman]], based on the 1940 [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks11/1100021h.html novel of the same name] by [[Elizabeth von Arnim]].

The film stars [[Bette Davis]] as a beautiful but self-centered woman who has many suitors but marries Job Skeffington, played by [[Claude Rains]], solely to save her brother from going to prison. It also makes a point about Skeffington's status as a Jew in 1914 high society and later in relation to Nazi Germany. Supporting actors include [[Walter Abel]], [[George Coulouris]] and [[Richard Waring]].

==Plot==
In 1914, spoiled Fanny Trellis is a renowned beauty with many suitors. She loves her brother Trippy and would do anything to help him. Fanny learns that Trippy has [[Embezzlement|embezzled]] money from his employer Job Skeffington. To save her brother from prosecution, Fanny pursues and marries the lovestruck Skeffington. Disgusted by the arrangement, in part because of his prejudice against Skeffington being Jewish, Trippy leaves home to fight in the [[Lafayette Escadrille]] in World War I.

Job loves Fanny, but she is merely fond of him and largely ignores him. She becomes pregnant with his child, but when Trippy dies in France, she states she is "stuck" with Job, and the marriage then becomes wholly loveless, continuing only for the child's sake. Job and George Trellis, Fanny's cousin, also enlist but are stationed near home.

Fanny enjoys playing the wealthy socialite, stringing along a persistent quartet of suitors who are unfazed by her marriage, as well as much younger lovers. Lonely, Job finds solace with his secretaries. When Fanny finds out, she divorces him, conveniently ignoring her own behavior.

Fanny neglects her young daughter (also named Fanny), who understandably prefers her loving father and begs him to take her with him to Europe. Although Job fears for his child and tries unsuccessfully to explain to her the nature of prejudice she will encounter as a Jew abroad, he finally, tearfully and joyfully, says yes. Fanny is relieved to be free of the encumbrance of a child. Fanny has a series of affairs, living well on the extremely generous settlement Job has left her – half his fortune – and hardly giving a thought to her daughter, whom she does not see for many years.

She retains her beauty as she grows older (much to the envy of her women acquaintances), but when she catches [[diphtheria]], it ravages her appearance. In denial, she invites her old lovers (and their wives) to a party. The men are shocked (and the women relieved) by how much Fanny has changed, leaving her distraught. Her latest young suitor, Johnny Mitchell, falls in love with her daughter, who has returned from Europe because of the rise of the [[Nazism|Nazis]]. They marry after only a few months and leave for [[Seattle]]. Fanny's daughter explains that, while she wishes her mother well, she feels no real love for her, and pities her for discarding the one man who truly loves her. Shortly before her daughter's departure, Fanny suffers the ultimate humiliation when one of her old beaux makes what she at first believes to be a sincere marriage proposal, only to withdraw it when he begins to suspect, incorrectly, that she is no longer wealthy. Fanny is left alone with her maid, Manby.

Fanny's cousin George brings Job back to Fanny's home unannounced. The Nazis have left Job penniless and worse, George tells Fanny, and he asks her to be generous. Fanny's vanity nearly prevents her from venturing down her home's grand staircase to see Job.

When she does finally enter the parlor, Job moves to her, stumbles and falls: He is blind (due to torture in a [[Nazi concentration camps|Nazi concentration camp]]). Fanny rushes to cradle him in her arms. As she takes his arm and guides him up the staircase, she tells the maid that "Mr. Skeffington has come home." Job had once, long ago, told Fanny that, "A woman is beautiful only when she is loved." George tells Fanny that, at that moment, she has "never been more beautiful." At long last, she realizes the truth of it.

==Cast==
* [[Bette Davis]] as Frances Beatrice 'Fanny' Trellis Skeffington
* [[Claude Rains]] as Job Skeffington
* [[Walter Abel]] as George Trellis, Fanny's cousin
* [[Richard Waring]] as Trippy Trellis, Fanny's brother
* [[Marjorie Riordan]] as Fanny Rachel Trellis, Fanny and Job's daughter, as an adult
* [[Robert Shayne]] as MacMahon, a local gangster
* [[John Alexander (actor)|John Alexander]] as Jim Conderley, one of Fanny's four persistent suitors
* [[Jerome Cowan]] as Edward Morrison, one of Fanny's four persistent suitors
* [[Peter Whitney]] as Chester Forbish, one of Fanny's four persistent suitors
* [[Bill Kennedy (actor)|Bill Kennedy]] as Bill Thatcher, one of Fanny's four persistent suitors
* Johnny Mitchell as Johnny Mitchell, a younger suitor of Fanny's who later marries her daughter. Born Douglas Lamy, this actor changed his name to that of his character.<ref>{{cite news| title=Actor Kills Self in Marital Split| newspaper=[[Syracuse Post-Standard]]| date=January 20, 1951| url=https://poststandard.newspaperarchive.com/syracuse-post-standard/1951-01-20/page-3/| url-access=subscription }}</ref>
* [[George Coulouris]] as Doctor Byles
* [[Dorothy Peterson]] as Manby, Fanny's housekeeper
* [[Sylvia Arslan]] as Fanny Rachel Trellis, Fanny and Job's daughter, at age 10 (uncredited)
* [[Creighton Hale]] as Casey (uncredited) 
* [[Halliwell Hobbes]] as Soames (uncredited) 
* [[Ethan Laidlaw]] as Cop (uncredited)
* [[Jack Mower]] as Man (uncredited)
* [[Will Stanton (actor)|Will Stanton]] as Sid Lapham (uncredited)
* [[Dolores Gray]] as Nightclub Singer (uncredited)

==Production==
Julius Epstein said "They had four or five scripts that had never been made, including one by [[Edmund Goulding]] and one by [[John Huston]]. We took a look at ''Mr. Skeffington'' and said, ‘First of all, it shouldn’t be English; it should be made with an American family. Secondly, the trick of the book was that its title was Mr. Skeffington, and he never appeared in the book. He should be a character in the movie.’ And it was made."<ref>{{cite book|first=Patrick|last=McGillian|chapter=Julius J Epstein: A king of comedy|title=Backstory: interviews with screenwriters of Hollywood's golden age|publisher= Berkeley|year= 1986|pages =181}}</ref>

[[Paul Henreid]] says he was offered the male lead but turned it down as he felt he would not be convincing as a man who looked on passively while his wife had affairs.<ref>{{cite book| title=Ladies man: an autobiography| url=https://archive.org/details/ladiesmanautobio00henr/page/n1/mode/2up| last1=Henreid| first1=Paul| last2=Fast| first2=Julius| year=1984| publisher=St. Martin's Press| location=New York| page=[https://archive.org/details/ladiesmanautobio00henr/page/165/mode/2up?q=skeffington 166]| isbn=978-0-3124-6384-7}}</ref>

According to the 1989 book ''Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud'' by Shaun Considine, Davis was going through intense personal torments at this time, which was reflected in her treatment of co-stars on this film, and several others at the time, culminating in a vicious personal attack. Apparently, while Davis was away from her dressing room, the eyewash she always used after filming the day's scenes had been poisoned, causing Davis to scream out in pain. Director Vincent Sherman, with whom Davis had once been romantically involved, admitted to the detectives investigating the incident, "If you asked everyone on the set who would have committed such a thing, everyone would raise their hand!" Even Bette Davis is quoted as saying "Only a mother could have loved me at this point in my life."<ref>{{cite book| title=Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud| url=https://archive.org/details/bettejoandivinef00cons| last=Considine| first=Shaun| publisher=Dell| location=New York| date=December 1990| page=[https://archive.org/details/bettejoan00shau/page/196/mode/2up?q=eyewash 197]| access-date=2023-04-12| isbn=978-0-4402-0776-4}}</ref>

==Box office==
According to the Warner Bros. records, the film earned $2,456,000 in the U.S. and $1,365,000 in other markets.<ref name="warners"/>

== Reception ==
In ''[[The Nation (magazine)| The Nation]]'' in 1944, film critic and author [[James Agee]] wrote, "{{nbsp}}... essentially ''Mr. Skeffington'' is just a super soap opera, or an endless woman's-page meditation on What to Do When Beauty Fades."<ref>Agee, James - ''Agee on Film Vol. 1'' © 1958 by The James Agee Trust.</ref> ''[[Leslie Halliwell]]'' gave it three of four stars: "Long, patchily made, but thoroughly enjoyable star melodrama."<ref>''Halliwell's Film Guide'', 13th ed. 1987 {{ISBN|978-0-00-638868-5}}.</ref> On Rotten Tomatoes, 57% of seven critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.9/10.<ref>{{cite web |title=Mr. Skeffington |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mr_skeffington |access-date=February 23, 2023 |website=Rotten Tomatoes}}</ref>

==Awards==
Bette Davis was nominated for the [[Academy Awards|Oscar]] for [[Academy Award for Best Actress|Best Actress]], and Claude Rains was nominated for [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor|Best Supporting Actor]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1945|title=The 17th Academy Awards {{!}} 1945 |access-date=9 January 2024|work=oscars.org}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons}}
* {{TCMDb title|id=2372}}
* {{IMDb title|0037094}}
* {{AFI film|id=24077|title=Mr. Skeffington}}
* [https://archive.org/download/Lux_Fills_and_Upgrades/Lux-451001-lowvol51m04s-496-MrsSkeffington-BDavisPaulHenreid.mp3 ''Mr. Skeffington''] on [[Lux Radio Theater]]: October 1, 1945

{{Vincent Sherman}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Skeffington}}
[[Category:1944 films]]
[[Category:American black-and-white films]]
[[Category:Warner Bros. films]]
[[Category:Films scored by Franz Waxman]]
[[Category:Films directed by Vincent Sherman]]
[[Category:Films set in the 1910s]]
[[Category:Films based on British novels]]
[[Category:Films about Jews and Judaism]]
[[Category:Films set in New York City]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Julius J. Epstein]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Philip G. Epstein]]
[[Category:Films scored by Paul Dessau]]
[[Category:American historical drama films]]
[[Category:1940s historical drama films]]
[[Category:1944 drama films]]
[[Category:1940s English-language films]]
[[Category:1940s American films]]
[[Category:English-language historical drama films]]