Arthur retired when her contract with Columbia Pictures expired in 1944. She reportedly ran through the studio's streets, shouting "I'm free, I'm free!" For the next several years, she turned down virtually all film offers, the two exceptions being Billy Wilder's "A Foreign Affair" (1948), in which she played a congresswoman and rival of Marlene Dietrich, and as a homesteader's wife in the classic Western "Shane" (1953), which turned out to be the biggest box-office hit of her career. The latter was her final film, and the only color film in which she appeared.