Pretty Good

How sad is this?

Absolutely Brilliant!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Major change for Zachary Scott here. For a change, he is a victim, the husband of an unfaithful wife. He acts accordingly when he discovers Ann Sheridan's discretion.As always, Eve Arden is along for the ride with her snappy one-liners and her usual brilliant sarcasm. In a change for her as well, she really dramatizes it up with her scene with "cousin" Scott, telling him to go easy on Sheridan. For Scott and Arden, this was their re-teaming after "Mildred Pierce," 2 years before.Interesting line here that women left alone during World War 11 resorted to unfaithfulness. It really isn't nice when you think of it, but it works here.Note a solid supporting performance by Jerome Cowan as an aggressive district attorney.

Ann Sheridan and Zachary Scott star in "The Unfaithful" in this 1947 Warner Brothers film directed by Vincent Sherman. The likable Sheridan plays Chris Hunter, a woman whose husband (Zachary Scott) has been away on a business trip. She's excited about his return the next morning; after a party held by her husband's cousin Paula (Eve Arden), we see her being attacked. The attacker gets into her home, and the assault continues there.The next day, we find out there's been a murder, and Chris tells the police and her husband that a man tried to rob her of her jewelry and she killed him defending herself. Right away you know her story is no good.This is a fairly interesting update of "The Letter" with some modern marital problems coming into the mix - a hasty marriage followed by a long wartime separation and the resulting loneliness. It doesn't have the bite of the Somerset Maugham story, but it's pretty good.Zachary Scott for once plays a nice guy, and Ann Sheridan gives a good performance as his wife. Eve Arden has the best role as the gossipy cousin who is more sympathetic to Chris than she immediately lets on.Good Warners film, good Warners cast.

I began watching this film out of curiosity. Having seen "The Letter" I just wanted to see how this one stacked up. But other than in general terms there is little else to compare them. Frankly the first half was somewhat predictable, a soap opera that telegraphed the outcome. But when it hit its stride, boy what a surprise! Without giving away any details this film is worth watching simply for the honest and straightforward way it deals with the complications of married life, especially when a couple is separated over a long period. There is plenty of good advice here especially considering the times we live in, what with all the servicemen returning home to find that their wives and sweethearts were real people with real problems.But there was more to it that just that. Perhaps a lawyer might object, but to me even the brief courtroom scene was believable. And the issues were very real. The film did not take the easy way out and reduce itself to an indictment of infidelity. Instead it examined and revealed the motives of the principal characters and none of them came out all good or all evil but a mixture, hence human.If one subscribes to the belief that cinema reflects life then this film is an important revelation of post WWII society and the surprise is that it wasn't all that different from today.

The film begins with Ann Sheridan coming home from a party and being attacked by an unknown person. The next morning, her husband (Zachary Scott) returns home from a business trip to find the police at his home. It seems that Ann killed the attacker and the story seems pretty open and shut--some guy broke into her home and she justifiably killed him.However, just a bit later, you find that there's a lot more to the story. Ann actually lied and what exactly is the truth is something you are never certain of--even by the end of the film. What Zachary Scott and the police do know, though, is that at one point Ann and her attacker had actually been lovers! Now so far, I liked the film and its twists and turns--especially when you find out Sheridan isn't so sweet after all. However, what bothered me and made this film less interesting is that despite her being a liar (and possibly a cold-blooded murderess), other story elements are thrown in which muddle the whole thing. They actually tried to make the viewer feel sorry for her and understand why she might have been justified in lying--and this lost me. I would have MUCH preferred the story not taking this detour and being much more a story about an evil and conniving woman (such as Bette Davis'character in THE LETTER). The sympathy angle weakened the narrative--making this movie more of an interesting time-pass than anything else.