Angel on My Shoulder **** (1946, Paul Muni, Claude Rains, Anne Baxter) – Classic Movie Review 11,380

Director Archie Mayo’s 1946 fantasy drama film Angel on My Shoulder is based on a story by Harry Segall, and stars Paul Muni, Claude Rains and Anne Baxter.

Angels and devils were popular in the 40s, and here’s another variant on Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941) by the same author, with its star Claude Rains, then an angel but now cast in the opposite image as the Devil.

The excellent Rains and Paul Muni, giving contrasting but perfectly complementary performances, keep us entertained in this sharply handled, wittily scripted story about a devil called Nick (Rains) who promises leniency to dead gangster Eddie Kagle (Muni), murdered by one of his men, Smiley Williams (Hardie Albright), if he will return to Earth as a reforming judge.

Director Mayo keeps it all very taut and tense, like one of his earlier melodramas, eg The Petrified Forest (1936).

Also in the cast are Onslow Stevens, George Cleveland, Erskine Sanford, Hardie Albright, James Flavin, Marion Martin, Jonathan Hale, Murray Alper, Joan Blair, Fritz Leiber, Kurt Katch, Sara Padden, Addison Richards, Ben Welden, George Meeker, Chester Clute, and Edward Keane.

Angel on My Shoulder is directed by Archie Mayo, runs 101 minutes, is made by Premier Productions, is released by United Artists, is written by Harry Segall and Roland Kibbee, shot in black and white by James van Trees, produced by Charles R Rogers and David W Siegel, scored by Dimitri Tiomkin, and designed by Bernard Herzbrun.

Release date: September 20, 1946.

The film is in the public domain in the US because the producers neglected to renew the copyright in 1973.

The producer changed the title Me and Satan, thinking the public would not go see a film about the Devil.

It is Mayo’s last film before retiring.

It was remade for TV in 1980 with Peter Strauss, Richard Kiley and Barbara Hershey.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,380

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