Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Martin Bradley Archie Mayo's curio "Angel on my Shoulder" is virtually unknown despite a cast headed by Paul Muni, Claude Rains and Anne Baxter. It's a fantasy along the same lines as "Here Comes Mr Jordan" and "It's a Wonderful Life". It came out in the same year as "It's a Wonderful Life" which may be one reason it's gotten lost in that movie's grander shadow or perhaps it's simply because it's not really that good. Muni seems totally lost in the role of a dead gangster fuelling the fires of Hell before he's brought back to inhabit the body of a 'good' judge the Devil is trying to get his hands on, (watching this you would never think Muni was once considered a great actor). Rains, on the other hand, looks like he's enjoying this nonsense though it's hardly what you would call acting; more like smirking as he goes through the motions. The ridiculous plot has Muni and Rains returning from Hell so that Rains' Devil can get the righteous judge down below, (and give Muni's gangster the chance to get revenge on the guy who plugged him). Of course, considering he's the Devil, Rains seems singularly unprepared for Anne Baxter's sweetness-and-light fiancée whose goodness messes up his plans somewhat. Naturally, it's a comedy and it's not unamusing in a daft kind of way but it's hardly memorable. Par for the Archie Mayo course, in fact.

Robert J. Maxwell Paul Mini is Eddie Kagel, a tough gangster who is just released from prison after a four-year stretch. He's picked up at the gate by his old friend Smiley, who greets him effusively, considering that he's another hood. The pair drive away, punching each other lovingly on the arms, friends since childhood. "Where's my rod?" asks Muni. "I got it right here," replies the smiling Smiley. "Give it to me," says Muni. Smiley pulls out the gun and shoots Muni dead.Muni finds himself in hell, which turns out to look a lot like Newark, New Jersey, all flames, furnaces, bubbling mud pots, and "hotter than Florida." The Devil is Claude Raines, who looks pretty Satanic with those kick lights always under his face. The suave Raines makes a deal. He'll take Muni back and plant him in the body of an honest judge. Muni will do his evil act and ruin the good judge's reputation. Then Raines will let Muni give Smiley what's coming to him.Well -- the best laid plans, you know? Enter the judge's sexy, good-looking girl friend, Anne Baxter. She's so disgustingly virtuous that she's at first shocked by the new judge's lack of social polish. He says things like, "Say, ain't no dame ever put nothing over on me." His manners are pustular. He gulps down double scotches and smokes cigars. And he doesn't know what the hell is going on. He talks to the now-invisible Raines, who is coaxing him on how to be bad, as if Muni needed lessons.I think the sophisticated viewer can take the plot from here. Baxter converts Muni into a man of the most pure moral thoughts. Muni now loves Baxter but he no longer gropes her at every opportunity. He refuses to kill the treacherous Smiley when he has the chance. The disgusted Raines gives up, returns the original judge, and takes Muni back to hell, where he will be a trustee instead of a stoker. I was a little mixed up about the whereabouts of the original judge, the one Muni, as Kagel, replaced.No matter. This is a fantasy, and an old one at that. Except for the personae and some plot details, you must have seen it before in one or another of its incarnations -- "Here Comes Mister Jordan," or "Heaven Can Wait," "A Guy Named Joe," "Always." Two of those are remakes of the other two.It's a pleasant enough diversion, although I wish the writers hadn't confused hydrogen sulfide with H2SO4. They could also have gotten the quote from Dante accurate. It's not "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." It's "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Heck, I had to look that up in Wikipedia. It only took a few minutes, and I don't see why the writers couldn't have taken the time.Muni is often accused of overacting and I guess he does overact, but I didn't mind much. His simian features were a little disturbing. It's difficult to understand how the cute, chubby, petite Anne Baxter could have fallen for a guy who looks like that -- but then he's a big-shot mayor and is headed for the governorship. Okay. I think I do understand.

bkoganbing The comparisons for Angel On My Shoulder and Here Comes Mr. Jordan are too obvious to belabor the point. Naturally since the same guy, Harry Segall wrote both screenplays. But in this one Claude Rains goes to the dark side. As Mephistopheles he's ruler of the underworld where the damned toil at their labors for eternity. But even Rains gets quite a handful when Paul Muni makes a sudden trip their courtesy of Hardie Albright.This part of the story is taken right out the plot of Angels With Dirty Faces. You remember that James Cagney took a hiatus from the rackets via a stretch in Sing Sing. When he came back he expected to resume where he left off, but Humphrey Bogart didn't see it that way. But Hardie Albright must have seen Angels With Dirty Faces because he plugs Paul Muni with four shots after picking him up at the prison gate. When Muni arrives in Hell he's only got one thing on his mind, crashing out and getting his former pal. Seeing a resemblance to a respected judge who he's trying to ensnare in sin or disgrace, Rains decides to let Muni out on parole so to speak. Of course he goes with him.When Muni enters the judge's body courtesy of Rains, Rains expects him to just behave in his usual hoodlum manner and disgrace the judge. But somehow the best laid plans of the devil keep getting gummed up. And Muni finds himself falling for the judge's fiancée, Anne Baxter and slowly changing his ways.Angel On My Shoulder was a charming fantasy that marked only the second time Muni returned to a gangster role other than his famous Scarface portrayal. While he was at Warner Brothers Muni rejected gangster parts over and over again. According to his co-star Anne Baxter, Muni was hoping to revive his career with this one. It was not to be. Muni returned to the stage after this film except for two films in the Fifties.Best in this film without a doubt is Claude Rains. Then again he's never bad in anything. If you liked him in Here Comes Mr. Jordan you will equally like him on the dark side. Angel On My Shoulder is an entertaining fantasy, but far from the work Paul Muni did in the Thirties.

classicsoncall For a 'B' film, this is about the best you can get, surprisingly well acted and cleverly done, with a fine cast supporting an interesting story. It was my first look at Paul Muni, who expresses a wide range of emotions as the murdered gangster who returns to Earth in a switcheroo for a judge who's been restoring victims to a place in society at the expense of the Devil (Claude Rains). Once involved with the Devil's deal however, things don't go as old Beelzebub had planned; every effort to cast Judge Parker (Muni's alter-ego) in a bad light winds up making him an even bigger hero.One of the things you'll have to get past though is how those closest to the real Judge Parker, his fiancée Barbara (Anne Baxter) and butler Albert (George Cleveland), wind up accepting his severely out of character behavior. Albert had it right in declaring, "... I don't wish to alarm you, but the Judge is definitely not himself this morning."Claude Rains has always been one of my favorite actors from the 1940's era, ever since watching him as the French prefect in "Casablanca". He always sported elegance and charm, even while portraying the smarmiest characters. No different here, as Beelzebub/Mephistopheles/Satan, Rains is a cunning devil, but easily perturbed when things don't go his way. He also had some of the film's best lines, I got a particular kick out of his remark on the aborted airplane flight to St. Louis - "... being up so high makes me uncomfortable", acknowledging a violation of heavenly air space.One of the successes of the movie is the way it keeps you guessing how things will eventually turn out, with the transformation of gangster Eddie Kagle (Muni again) into a compassionate human being. In that regard, the picture borrows a page from the Warner Brothers societal agenda, examining how circumstances early in one's life can have a profound effect on it's outcome. The bittersweet ending finds Kagle a reformed spirit, unable to elude Lucifer's deadly deal, but leaving his mark nonetheless on those who's lives he touches.