JohnHowardReid Hollywood certainly lived up to its Hollyweird reputation when Mr. Arch Oboler started the 3-D revolution in 1952 with "Bwana Devil". In fact, the very last person in the world you would expect to become involved in a process that was one hundred per cent visual, was Arch Oboler. Mr. Oboler was primarily a radio writer. He had virtually no visual sense whatever. And a good example of Oboler at his worst is Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer's "The Arnelo Affair" (1947). You don't need to actually view the movie. You can close your eyes and Oboler will tell you everything that's going on, courtesy of off-screen narration and instant information dialogue. Aside from Eve Arden (admittedly she has the best of the wordy screenplay), the acting, led by frozen-faced Frances Gifford and stiff-as-a-dummy George Murphy, is almost as bad as the over-lit sets and the incredibly store-windows wardrobe.

dougdoepke A relentlessly glum 86-minutes. I don't know who's to blame for Gifford's unrelieved stony face, but it's like she and Hodiak are having a dour-off to see who can be more expressionless. As a romantic couple, they have all the charm and plausibility of robots. Even the usually affable Murphy gets little chance to beguile. Between that and a relentlessly talky script, the movie takes an unfortunate nose-dive into monotony. The premise is pretty standard crime fare—a neglected wife (Gifford) is drawn from her comfortable shell by a handsome shady character (Hodiak). Since the wife's also a mother, she struggles with the temptation, but is constantly reminded how neglected she is by her lawyer husband (Murphy). Soon a murder connected to Hodiak occurs. Now a potential scandal hangs over the luckless Gifford's and her attempt break with the heartless Hodiak.Writer-director Oboler was an interesting talent. His background in radio, however, shows up in the talky script. But he was also capable of fascinating flashes of imagination as in the post-apocalyptic Five (1951) and the psychodrama Bewitched (1945). I suspect he was hemmed in here by requirements from the notoriously conservative MGM. Thanks to that airbrushed studio, we can't even be sure there was an actual affair between the wife and the practiced seducer. That way, the wayward wife doesn't have to be punished more than she is, and audiences could go home feeling good. Too bad RKO didn't produce this. That way, Oboler might have been drawn in a noirish direction, which the material richly deserves. Anyway, only the presence of sassy cynic Eve Arden and canny kid Dean Stockwell lend the film any spark. I especially like that scene with dad Murphy and son Stockwell fixing the broken stool. That showed needed life and imagination. Too bad the rest of the movie doesn't.

misctidsandbits You want to scream at the character as she stumbles into an obvious man hole, lacking the minimal effort it would take to prevent it. But, that's the storyline. Once you see that happening, you have the choice to either turn it off or put up with it to the finish. I did the latter.Gifford had to be at the height of her beauty in this - flawless. Obviously, hubby got over it, as makes a case for beauty being only skin deep, and she sure was passive. George Murphy is one of those "leading men" that cause you to scratch your head and figure it must have been who was available at the time after better choices were not.John Hodiak is contemptible, as was his usual film persona. Our heroine is repulsed, but drawn to him; again, the frustrating element that sadly made up the story. I think Eve Arden does help in this. She's always a refresher, and did relieve the intensity. Actually, she seemed to have a fuller part than usual.The child's situation, again, was frustrating to watch. Why didn't this dame get her focus off herself, get actively involved in her child's life, school, friends, volunteer work, learn to make potholders - anything to get herself off the severely underemployed roster.But, that's the way of this type of story, and once bit, you have to endure to the cure. I wouldn't say not to see this, but if you are easily frustrated, better skip it.

bmacv In The Arnelo Affair, the letter `A' keeps cropping up again and again - as a monogram on a dressing gown, a compact, a key. Ostensibly it signifies one of the two main characters: Tony Arnelo (John Hodiak ), a predatory nightclub owner, or Ann Parkson (Frances Gifford), wife of Arnelo's square-rigger of an attorney (George Murphy). But really the `A' serves to remind us that the story is chiefly about the Scarlet Letter of Adultery - the Affair of the title.The movie's sinister, noirish elements are not quite an afterthought, but almost. During the first half of the movie, ignored and restive, Gifford sulks nobly in the household she shares with Murphy, forever working late on his legal briefs, and her nine-year-old son (Dean Stockwell) who thinks he could benefit from psychoanalysis. (She, however, may be a riper candidate for the couch, given as she is to swoons and passive-aggressive feigned headaches.)When smooth-talking Hodiak flatters her and hires her as decorator, she obliges and soon finds herself with the key to his apartment and an inclination to use it for naughtier purposes than updating the chintz. But she soon finds out that Hodiak has many another slip in which to dock his dinghy; and when one of his stable of lady friends is found murdered, Gifford's initialed compact is found with the body. With the prompting of police detective Warner Anderson, Murphy is jolted out of his complacency and sets out to find the truth....Like The Unfaithful of the same year (a sweetened-up remake of The Letter), The Arnelo Affair seems geared to the women in its audience, more a weeper than a noir. Even the redoubtable Eve Arden, as a dress-designing upstairs neighbor, gets paraded out as much for her eye-popping post-war get-ups as for her trademark mordant lines (and she's a welcome foil to all Gifford's suffering saintliness). The Arnelo Affair holds interest, if slackly; its director, Arch Oboler, hadn't much of a feel for the possibilities inherent in the script or the knack for bringing them out. It's telling that the most memorable characters in the movie are not the principals but Anderson, Arden and the nine-year-old Stockwell.