GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

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.

Jay Raskin Paul Muni is intense and dumb as the gangster Eddie Kagle. Claude Rains is gleeful and wicked as the Devil. They're the main reasons to watch this classic and enjoyable film. This was Archie Mayo's last film. He had directed some very good ones in the 1920's through the 1940's, including "the Petrified Forest." It is not a bad film to end a career on. Basically, this is a medieval morality tale brought up to date by putting it squarely in the Gangster Film genre of the golden age of Hollywood. For the most part evil/sin/hell is equated with gangster/violence/ignorance. The post theological, scientific view that crime is a function of social and economic conditions in a society is abandoned for the more primitive religious view that evil souls are placed in material bodies at birth. Salvation comes through love, sacrifice and the good fortune of hearing religious anti-devil preaching. While communist/socialist writers and actors did influence many movies of the period, we should remember that the rigid Catholic Morality Hays code was king at this time, and quasi religious films involving angels and devils were quite common. In one way these films are so absurd they subvert the conceptual paradigm of angels and devils. On the other hand, they lend support to and reinforce this type of primitive thinking. Anne Baxter (All About Eve) is delightful in the small role of Muni's fiancé. The sets, cinematography and sound are all top notch for the period. This is a good companion film to "Here Comes Mr. Jordan."

secondtake Angel on My Shoulder (1946)It's great to see Paul Muni in another role--he's a great actor who did too few films--and it's never bad to see Claude Rains. In this case Muni plays a con who has gone to hell, and Rains is the devil himself. They have an arrangement to go up to the surface of the earth and some trickiness ensues. It's fun, deceptive, sometimes humorous, sometimes romantically serious.Because the plot is a clear contrivance, the movie does have a slightly illustrative sense, the way "Harvey" does with James Stewart. But sometimes you forget about the devil and the deals he's made, and you just watch, and the best parts of the movie rise above the cleverness. This is director Archie Mayo's last film, and though he no Hollywood legend, he was a serious, consistent director, and this proves it.

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.