Simply A Masterpiece

One of my all time favorites.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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" is like a pig wearing a Chanel dress. It's a lovely dress....but you still have a pig hiding underneath. So, while the movie looks nice since it was made by the top studio of the day, at its heart the film is unappealing.Mr. and Mrs. Parkson (George Murphy and Frances Gifford) appear to be a happy and successful couple. After all, he's a lawyer, they have a cute son (Dean Stockwell) and have a lot going for them...except Mr. Parkson is about as romantic as a punch in the kidneys! Considering how much he neglects his wife, it's not surprising that Anne would be drawn to Tony Arnelo (John Hodiak)...a suave thug who runs a swank nightclub. On the pretense of going to his apartment to give him decorating ideas, Anne goes alone to Arnelo's...and he tries to woo her. She never says yes, she never says no...and seems like a bit of a milquetoast, actually. Later, she comes to his apartment again and witnesses him slapping around an actress...and Anne stomps off due to his boorish behavior.The next day, the newspaper says that the same actress was found dead...and Anne is pretty sure Arnelo did it. EVERYTHING she does from her on in the film makes zero sense and made me question whether or not the character was supposed to be suffering from a head injury or a case of indigestion. Regardless, Frances Gifford delivers a confusing mess of a character--some, no doubt, due to bad writing. And, by this point, the film completely lost me. Bad dialog, confusing and irrational characters and a script that seems like it never even went through re-writes or revisions make this a very difficult film to finish. It does look great...but is a mess nevertheless.

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.

Frances Gifford gets mixed up in "The Arnelo Affair," a 1947 film also starring George Murphy, John Hodiak, Eve Arden and Dean Stockwell. In fact, the film was on TCM as part of Dean Stockwell's birthday. He certainly was an adorable little boy.Gifford plays Anne Parkson, the neglected wife of a successful attorney, Ted Parkson (Murphy). One night, Ted brings home a shady client, Tony Arnelo (Hodiak), who owns a nightclub. Arnelo has an immediate attraction to Anne and, upon learning that she has dabbled in room design, he invites her to decorate his club. Of course, he couldn't care less if his club ever gets decorated or not. Though Anne hasn't yet said "yes," he gives her a key to his place after their first meeting and invites her back the next day at 2. She arrives the next day and is confronted by an actress-girlfriend of Tony's. Tony slaps the woman and the frightened Anne runs away, the compact that her husband gave her falling out of her purse. The next day, she sees in the paper that the woman has been killed. In exchange for the compact and a letter he later steals, Tony wants Anne.This is a good-looking film, with beautifully tailored mens suits on Hodiak and Murphy and smashing clothes for Gifford and Eve Arden, who owns her own dress shop. And that's about it. The dialogue is totally predictable - when Anne asks her husband to go away with her, the words were out of my mouth 30 seconds before she said the line. The attractive Gifford is a bore and gives no shading to her role at all. MGM never could figure out what to do with Laraine Day - why didn't she make this? Murphy has a pleasant way about him and Hodiak is okay, but frankly, Dean Stockwell as Anne's son steals that show. That's not saying much. Eve Arden is good but wasted.The music is overpowering, and the pacing is slow. "The Arnelo Affair" needed a strong actress in the lead, better dialogue and faster pacing. Without those elements, it's pretty dull.