Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . that everyone has an evil twin (unless they're evil, in which case they have an honest double) in his film, ANGEL ON MY SHOULDER. One of the most famous proofs of this notion came in the 1900s during World War II, when Doppelgangsters Adolf Hitler and Charles Chaplin dominated the Big Screen (as Hitler starred in TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, and Chaplin actually subbed for Hitler in THE GREAT DICTATOR, just as evil Paul Muni subs for honest Paul Muni in ANGEL). Of course, things do not always work out as neatly in Real Life as they do in ANGEL. In cases such as O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, or Mel Gibson, the Yang seems to permanently replace the Yin. On the other hand, there are opposite examples, such as the youth scout genocide participant from a distant land whose double got a Nobel Peace Prize as soon as he became the Leader of the Free World. Good or evil, Paul Muni looks particularly creepy in ANGEL, which may dissuade many viewers from looking into mirrors for awhile.

LDB_Movies Paul Muni was an actor who was way ahead of his time. Who else could have played Louis Pasteur, Emile Zola, and a gangster, all with perfect accents, inflections, and facial expressions? His kind of acting was so way ahead of his time - most actors in the 1930s and 1940s were typecast into roles that didn't allow them to play a variety of characters. But not Paul Muni. Most actors in the 1930s and 1940s did NOT do accents, even though by today's standards, we consider this a requirement - but not Paul Muni.Having just watched "The Life of Emile Zola", Here his portrayal of Eddie Kagel blew me away. The movie itself is slight, and has some humorous moments. But Paul Muni's performance raises it above the rest.

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.