O Caso Arnelo

This movie is unsuccessful as a noir, a crime drama -- as anything, really.

John Hodiak is always compelling, though he isn't a convincing villain here. George Murphy is barely adequate.

Frances Gifford -- whose bio I just read here, and who had a tragic life -- is very beautiful but directed to act as if in a coma.

Even Eve Arden's quips fall uneasily flat in this context.

The best performance is given by Dean Stockwell, as the strangely troubled child Murphy and Gifford profess to adore but who seems to be ignored by his father and to have an extreme affection for his mother.

Okay crime drama is helped by the competence of the film makers but hindered by the flat performance of one of the leads.

The actual story of a bored housewife seemingly framed for murder by a cad certainly isn't fresh but Frances Gifford is properly anguished in the lead. MGM was giving her the big push at this time but almost immediately after this was completed she was involved in a major car accident in which she sustained severe injuries which effectively ending her career and causing her mental problems for the remainder of her days.

Hodiak is also quite good as the rotten Arnelo of the title who manages to shade his rather contemptible character with a bit of conflict. The divine Eve Arden is also in the cast proving once again she's the best friend a leading lady ever had. In addition to being a bright spot she looks sensational in one glamorous outfit after another.

Where the film suffers is in the role of the husband portrayed by George Murphy. He could not possibly have played the role more flatly if he actually tried. It's as if everyone else learned their lines and he's reading them off a cue card, badly. He's a major flaw in the film.

Shot when noir was in its heyday the film is full of shadows and deep focus. Not a classic of the genre but a decent entry of its type.

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.

The thriller side only appears in the second part ;the first one,the best , is essentially psychological drama : a marriage on the rocks even though the husband does not realize it:when his wife tries to talk it over with him,he soliloquizes and his answer has nothing to do with her woman's concern ; he does not see that she's fascinated by Arnelo's charm (John Hodiak's look is real magnetism );as for the son (played by wunderkind Dean Stockwell,the future star of Fleischer's "compulsion" ) ,when he tinkers about with his dad ,most of the work is "too dangerous" for him ,and the boy has a relevant question:"what are you going to do when I grow up?";also revealing is his dream where everything is made of ice -cream,candy and chocolate ,but his mouth is sewn and he cannot take advantage of it .

Thus the characters are more detailed than the average thriller,and the murder mystery is more run of the mill stuff : the clues , the suspects ,the investigation , all is derivative .But Frances Gilford is pretty and moving , Georges Murphy gives an adequate performance as the indifferent husband obsessed by his nine to five work ;nonetheless,the stand out is arguably Hodiak as the refined and selfish womanizer.

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.