Movie: Mr. Skeffington

This one isn't a Netflix offering; it's one from my personal library that I rewatched to decide if I want to trade it off or not. I'll also warn you that I will be merciless on the spoilers for this one, because the biggest problem is the very end.

Of course, there are other problems too. For one, it's way too long. I don't mind long movies. In fact, movies that are less than 90 minutes minimum tweak my switch. (For instance, I love The Corpse Bride, but at 77 minutes I always feel a little gyped.) Mr Skeffington, however, is a full 2 hours and 25 minutes long, and it would have been dragging at 90 minutes. Most of that time is spent watching Bette Davis flirt with people. OK, she's a flirt, we get it. On top of that, either she was talking with a falsetto through the entire movie, or Bette Davis has the second most obnoxious voice in the world. And it's hard to top Butterfly McQueen in that category.

Oh, and I have to say that as much as I love Claude Rains, and as good of an actor as he is, he simply is NOT a poor Jewish boy from New York's south side made good. He's just not. Really, really not. And no matter how hard I try to politely pretend that he is... It's so not happening. (So, where does a poor New York Jewish boy pick up that amazingly sexy British accent, anyway?)

All that time spent, you'd think at least some of it could be used to develop the movie's theme, "A woman is beautiful when she's loved, and only then." But, nah. We'll just say it a couple of times and not actually do anything with it until the very end -- where we'll botch it horribly. More on that later.

Another problem is that the movie is dated to the second. In ways I guess it had to be, but at the same time, those make it more difficult for a modern audience to see the movie the same was a contemporary audience would have.

For example, there's one scene in there where Fanny says to her adult daughter (also named Fanny, confusingly enough) "isn't that dress a little old for you?" Well, when I really thought about it after the viewing, I realized that what Fanny Rachel was wearing was probably quite fashionable and perfect for a lady of around 20 years of age at the movie's release in 1944, while Fanny Beatrix was wearing something that was fashionable for a lady of 20 years back when she was 20 years old, around 1916. So the point of the scene is both that Fanny Beatrix is in denial about her age (via refusing to believe she has an adult daughter), and that she's living in the past, pretending not only that she's still 20, but that she's still 20 in the 1910s.
However, if you're not interested in historical fashion, you probably wouldn't realize that she was wearing a dress from her youth (as opposed to a 1940s dressing gown), or that the evening gown she wears afterward also has the same problem -- young woman's from when she was a young woman.

Another dated issue that messes with things is the sexual double-standard concerning the Skeffingtons' "affairs". In typical 1940s-mainstream movie fashion, it's a little ambiguous about who slept with whom. (I think it would be clear to an audience at the time, but the 'codes' have changed since then, if you know what I mean.) My interpretation is that Job did sleep with his secretaries. I'm not entirely sure whether Fanny slept with any of her suitors or not, although if pressed to chose I would say she didn't due to a line about 'keeping her wedding vows', said to her latest boyfriend -- it comes across as Fanny doesn't realize any contradiction, so I'd said her affairs were emotional, not physical.
However, it doesn't really matter whether Fanny actually slept around or not, because I think the movie is trying to either show the "affairs" as equal, or Job as the greater wronged. It definitely reflects the idea that men "need" sex, and that Job's affairs were Fanny's fault for not satisfying that need, while at the same time condemning her for seeking attention and idolization from men besides her husband and accusing her of hypocrisy for divorcing Job over his affairs.
I think in a modern retelling, either they would both be sleeping around, or Job would be taking his secretaries out just to avoid the stigma of turning up at certain locations alone, with nothing to it beyond that public appearance. Actually, in a modern retelling Job's affairs could be left out entirely, since we now have no-fault divorces.

By far, though, the biggest problem with the movie is the ending. Making Job blind completely guts the theme and resolution of the movie. "A woman is beautiful when she is loved, and only then," remember? It's sexist and old-fashioned, but it's what we've got. We've seen all the suitors of Fanny's past who didn't really love her and now turn away from her since she's lost her looks. She forces herself to go down to see Job despite her fear that he will also look at her in disgust. What needs to happen here is that she walks into the room, he looks up at her, his eyes light up at the sight of her and he tells her that she is beautiful and absolutely means it because he still loves her so much. They could still have him maimed by Nazis and unable to give her anything but love now, but paralyze him or something. Don't blind him. It's not a romantic ending that he can never see her as ugly. The romantic ending would be that he would never see her as ugly no matter what her physical appearance.

And in God's name, I really wish someone had told the writers that the Jamie What's-her-face running gag wasn't funny. Because maybe then they wouldn't have used it to stomp out whatever sweetness the ending had. :P