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.

The story of a woman (Frances Gifford) whose marriage to a successful attorney (George Murphy) leaves her feeling under-appreciated. When she catches the eye of a client who owns an upscale night club (John Hodiak) and, as a means of getting to know her on more intimate terms, offers her a job to redo the interior decorating on his apartment, she eventually accepts, seemingly knowing what this would lead to. Married with a cute son (Dean Stockwell), she realizes she has everything to lose in the Arnelo Affair, especially when Tony Arnelo turns out to be a womanizer who is not above knocking off an interfering ex-lover, the evidence of which points to Gifford, thus adding considerably to her already heightened sense of anxiety, which seems to put her in a state of semi-shock. The affair goes on within her social circle which is captured in a great scene in Arnelo's night club after the murder, with Eve Arden, who is Gifford's friend, noticing something going on between Arnelo and Gifford. Murphy is pretty good as Gifford's husband who realizes she went astray due to his lack of attention. Gifford is worth seeing for her part as she gives in to her desire for Arnelo all the while racked with doubt and guilt and then fear of losing everything dear to her over doing so. And Hodiak turns in a great role as Arnelo, with exceeding smoothness and subtlety.

The Arnelo Affair has John Hodiak in the title role of a nightclub owner with tax troubles getting an affair going with his lawyer's wife Frances Gifford.Frances is a woman with an itch and Hodiak is quite willing to scratch it. But as it turns out he's doing a bit of two timing himself on actress Joan Woodbury. Later on when Woodbury is murdered Hodiak is on the short list of Detective Warner Anderson suspects, but so is Gifford.This film is a great example of the Code strangling the creativity of film making. Today it would be quite explicitly filmed with proper sex scenes in their place. George Murphy played Gifford's husband and his is a strangely underwritten role. If I were doing the film and being that Hodiak is having tax troubles, when Murphy does find out there are hundreds of creative ways he could have done Hodiak good and proper.Eve Arden is in the film in an Eve Arden part. Though in this one she's sporting a hint of jealousy that Hodiak isn't giving her a tumble. That too should have been brought out more.The Arnelo Affair if someone decides to remake it has lots of room for improvement.

I have just caught this Movie on TCM, and can understand why George Murphy went into Politics if this was the best MGM could serve up to him. It is so slow-moving that the attempt to make it a real film-noir effort does not come off. It featured two of my favouriteplayers in Eve Arden (completely wasted) and Dean Stockwell(the best actor in the Film), but what really hit me was that the leading lady Frances Gifford went through some 90 minutes (it seemed longer!) without changing the expression on her face--her fainting scene was comical. John Hodiak played his role OK, but the script let him, and the rest of the cast, down very badly. I gave it 4 stars mainly because of the photography. It would have been on the first half of the Program when double features were the go.