Angel on My Shoulder
After his definitive performance in Scarface (1932), Paul Muni vowed never to play a gangster again. This tactic worked well for a couple of years, with an Academy Award for The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) and an Oscar nomination for The Life of Emile Zola (1937), but eventually the good parts started to dwindle. By 1946, Muni was keen to play a major role again, so took the part of a gangster in this film.,Upon arriving in hell, Eddie complains of the smell of rotten eggs. A "chemist" states that this is due to H2SO4, which he unconventionally calls "hydrogen sulfuric acid". H2SO4 is sulfuric acid, and it does not smell like rotten eggs; hydrogen sulfide (H2S) produces the rotten-egg smell.,Eddie Kagle: Take a powder.
Albert, Parker's Servant: Take a powder sir? Oh, you mean scram.,Opening credits: This story is about Eddie Kagle who based his way of living on what Omar Khayyam once said: "Live fully while you may and reckon not the cost.",Edited into Your Afternoon Movie: Angel on my Shoulder (2023),Paul Muni is a dead convict brought back to earth by the devil in "Angel on my Shoulder," a 1946 film also starring Claude Rains and Anne Baxter. Muni is Eddie, a convict fresh out of jail who is killed by his partner Smiley and goes straight to you know where. Let's just say it's hot. The devil, played by Claude Rains, needs help himself. A Judge Parker is keeping too many candidates out of hell, and he sees that Eddie is a ringer for the Judge. So he arranges for Eddie to get into the judge's body as he sleeps so that he can ruin the judge's reputation and Eddie can get revenge on Smiley. But even the best-laid plans of the Devil can go astray.

During and after World War II, films dealt with psychiatry, with angels, with death, and with people returning from the dead. All of this had to do with the emotional and adjustment problems that returning soldiers had and with the loss of loved ones in countless families. "Angel on My Shoulder" is along the same idea as "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" and "A Guy Named Joe," and a close brother of "Heaven Can Wait" and the later "The Bishop's Wife." This is an excellent example of the genre, with top acting by Paul Muni, Anne Baxter, and Claude Rains. Muni is great in a Bogart type of role - he gives a performance imbued with toughness and humor as a bad guy who begins to see the other side of evil. Anne Baxter is very good as his patient but suffering fiancée, endeavoring to understand the difference in the judge's personality. As the Devil, Claude Rains is inspired casting. He's elegant, charming and manipulative, and gets plenty nervous when he sees things aren't working out as he planned.

Wonderful film, and a good chance to see the fine actor Paul Muni in a lighter role than he usually played.,