VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

jarrodmcdonald-1 Critic James Agee, when reviewing the film in 1944, felt it was an overwrought story made to manipulate female moviegoers. Not sure if I agree with his assessment, but I do think Bette Davis is miscast as a gorgeous woman. It would have worked better with someone like Vivien Leigh or Gene Tierney-- any actress whose beauty was obvious and too striking to ignore. Or perhaps someone like Ingrid Bergman would have done an excellent job. And maybe in place of Rains, they could have reunited her with Boyer. Joan Fontaine (in Warners' remake of THE CONSTANT NYMPH a year earlier) might also have been acceptable.But Davis just does not work for me in this role. In NOW, VOYAGER she starts as an ugly duckling and we know that even despite her metamorphosis, she still has all those ugly insecurities inside-- that's sort of what bonds her to the young girl later on in the picture. However, in MR. SKEFFINGTON there is not supposed to be any doubt that she's a confident and alluring woman. I feel what we get here is play-acting, a vainglorious actress in a less- than-noble attempt to play a great screen siren. It's just not believable at all, no matter how much they dress her up.

Martin Bradley On the surface "Mr. Skeffingnton" may look like nothing more than another novelettish women's picture from the 1940's, designed purely as a vehicle for its star, but look more closely and you can see that it is in fact one of the great films about growing old and about how some women will deceive themselves that they never will. It is a great tragic-comedy.Fanny Trellis is a silly, frivolous young woman while the men who flutter around her are sillier still. At first you might think there isn't much to this but when Fanny marries older and richer Job Skeffington, (a superb Claude Rains), the film deepens and darkens. Job is her brother's employer and Fanny marries Job to get her brother off the hook when he's caught with his fingers in the till. Fanny loves Job the way you might love a pet and treats him accordingly.The movie was directed by Vincent Sherman, not the most profound of film-makers but a consummate director of women's pictures and his star is Bette Davis, (who else?), at her very finest. The greatness of Davis' performance is that she grows into the role using all her trademark mannerisms to build Fanny's character. Near the end of the film there is a magnificent sequence, stunningly shot by Ernest Haller, where Fanny, alone in her mansion, suddenly realizes she is now an old woman and no longer attractive. This sequence is a triumph for director, DoP and star. Perhaps the film isn't quite a lost masterpiece; on the other hand, it's a film that transcends its genre. Perhaps I should go back and revisit the Sherman canon again.

Red_Identity I think Mr. Skeffington is probably in the lower half of Davis' filmography (of which to this point I've only seen 10, all of her nominated roles except The Star). This one reminds me too much of The Little Foxes, and Davis is required to hit some of the same notes, although there are notable differences. As it is, I think this is a watchable, decent film, worthy it for Davis really. She's still pretty great here, and her conviction is as pinpoint as it's always been. The other cast members are good too, most notably Claude Rains. And I'm surprised the film isn't titled Mrs. Skeffington, since it's really all about Fanny.

DKosty123 This movie while dated is quite an acting job by Davis. There are several things about it which make it quite worthwhile. What I found interesting might be different than others though I did note some interesting things.The time line of the film from before World War 1 through World War 2 is interesting considering that being released in 1944, World War 2 wasn't over with yet. The film not only does not address the end of the War even though the story certainly goes beyond it, but the film does hint that the filmmakers were anti Jewish.A more subtle scene has Claude Rains giving his daughter a little Sambo doll. This is a small hint of racism which places the film square in the 1944 time frame for sure. It is amazing to me how racism last through World War 2 but you have to remember that the party running the country then (FDR & Democrats) was the same party which supported slavery going into our own Civil War.Betty Davis plays a woman here who is so vain about her looks that she can't love anybody. The film makes an early reference to the fact that her latest group of beaus were only there because she had dismissed a previous ones. All the men didn't seem to care that she treated them all like furniture, they still to propose to her. In real life this value still exists in some women. They are so stuck on themselves that they don't care about others feelings.Davis & her Brother were from a rich family, but a family now broke. The brother steals money from Mr Skeffington (Claude Rains) during his employment with him. Davis meets Skeffington while finding out about the theft. When Skeffington becomes the first man to be oblivious of her looks, & in order to save her brother from arrest, Davis character responds by going to meet him- a first in a life of a woman who has always had the men come to her.When she marries him, the brother resents it as he feels she only did it to help him. This destroys the brother & sisters relationship. Meanwhile Skeffington shows the patience of a God putting up with a wife that doesn't love him. Luckily he gets a daughter out of it & when they divorce, his wife is so wrapped up in herself that she lets him have custody of their daughter.When the daughter returns, mom suddenly takes ill, & she takes his latest beau away from her mom & marries him. Make no mistake though, this film is strictly a Davis starring vehicle. Everybody else is support including Claude Rains. Still, Davis is plenty great to carry this film. Rains & the supporting cast are kind of a bonus.History is often given a short shrift here, but this movie isn't about historic events. It is more a soap about attitudes like Gone With The Wind very often was only in this one, there is more Davis & less of the supporting players. Still it is a good film- it just has a Warner Brothers budget so it can't rise to anything beyond the assembly line it was produced on.