Product: Angel On My Shoulder (UK PAL Region 0)
Rating: 4.0
Heaven can wait- for the other team
From the same writer as "here comes Mr. Jordan" this is heaven can wait- for the other team. Entertaining and well done afflicted with unfortunate late 40's style cinematography which I've always found annoying it is still worth the look.Paul Muni plays Eddie Keagle, a gangster murdered by his own partner who finding himself `down there' makes a deal with Claude Rains, whom he fails to recognize as the big boss down below, to escape. Rains will help him to get revenge on his killer if Muni will help Rains by ruining a squeaky clean judge.Rains puts Muni into the judge's body and from then on the gangster is running the show. The problem is two fold. The tools of the devil are dumb as rocks and keep messing up his attempts to ruin the judge's reputation and secondly treated with kindness and respect by common people who would have spit on the gangster and admired by children the judge has helped Eddie starts to wonder if he was such a nice guy after all.Not over the top or mawkish, Muni's gangster is not readily likeable, which makes him an entertaining character to watch, wondering more what he'll do than hoping for him. Rains, however, is the big draw. Deliciously underplaying the devil one starts to feel sorry for him as his plans get repeatedly foiled by the tools he has to work with.In the end this is an entertaining and not entirely predictable morality play balancing Muni's unlikeable self absorbed thug with Rains' sophisticated charmer.