Bette Davis' Face: Mr. Skeffington, 1944

French poster for the film.  The French title translates as, "woman, loved and always pretty".

We recently re-watched Bette Davis and - the always wonderful - Claude Rains in Mr. Skeffington, a pretty good, fairly effective film, which still comes close to being ruined by inept direction and the ferociously overactive scoring by the usually brilliant Franz Waxman.  Davis plays the eternally young Fanny Trellis Skeffington through four decades and I don't know what's more fascinating, discerning the efforts of the make-up, hair, and costume departments to turn Davis into the standardized "great beauty" the role calls for, or her high-pitched, fluttery impersonation of a dim-wit.  I think they all pull it off, brilliantly.

But in the third act, when Fanny comes down with a pesky little case of diphtheria which annihilates her famous beauty, and she has to resort to the extremist of "extreme make-overs"... well, that's when the fun really begins.

I mean, what other actress of Hollywood's "Golden Age" would allow herself to look like this on screen?