Mr. Skeffington is remarkable for its time because it candidly deals with the subject of anti-semitism. Skeffington is a successful Jewish stockbroker who rose from the slums. Fanny Trellis came from aristocratic wealth but is now broke. Their marriage of convenience outrages Fanny's blueblooded family and relatives. The film contains a candid treatment of marital disintegration and mutual infidelity followed by a typical N.Y. fault-based divorce (in which both parties are at fault but the husband allows a default divorce to proceed). Fanny gladly gives up custody of her daughter so that she can maintain her liberated lifestyle; little Fanny is responsibly raised by her father (who schleps her off to Germany). There is also a painful scene in which father and daughter agree to stay together in which the father warns her that by staying with him she will be treated as Jewish and will confront discrimination, especially in Germany. All of this was quite unusual for films of the time. Of course, the film was made in 1944 when anti-Nazi themes were permissible, but even then it was rare to see even reasonably candid treatment of divorce and child custody issues and rarer yet to see anti-semitism.