Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

IslandGuru Who payed the critics

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

PWNYCNY A man undergoes a dramatic personality change for reasons known only to the audience. For this story to work, the audience must accept its premise: that there are things going on that can only be accepted as a matter of faith. The existence of spiritual forces beyond the five senses is an idea as old as civilization itself. It is a fundamental basis for religion. As regard to this movies, the intercession of these forces have both comical and serious consequences, comical in how people react to the judge's radically changed character and how the judge himself reacts to his new persona, and serious that the movie conveys the message that even within the nastiest persons there is a kernel of goodness. Paul Muni gives a great performance as Eddie Kagle, gangster turned good guy. Anne Baxter is wonderful as the judge's fiancé who stays loyal to the judge. This movie is worth watching.

utgard14 Nick, the Devil, (Claude Rains) allows murdered gangster Eddie Kagle (Paul Muni) to return to life in the body of a lookalike judge, hoping to destroy the judge's good reputation. Eddie's got plans of his own, namely getting revenge on the man who killed him. But neither Eddie nor Nick counted on the judge's fiancée (Anne Baxter), whose love may put Eddie on the side of the angels for once.Very entertaining movie. I've always enjoyed Paul Muni's acting style. He can be very broad and hammy but really knock it out of the park for the emotional scenes. It's a nice blend that sets him apart from most of his contemporaries. Here he's a lot of fun playing a gangster with attitude but when it comes time to get serious he doesn't miss a beat. Claude Rains is also great. There usually was a little bit of the Devil in Mr. Rains' roles so this is a perfect fit for him. Anne Baxter is lovely as always. It's a good fantasy movie with some romance and a lot of humor. You should definitely check it out if you get the chance.

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.

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.