VCI Entertainment revealed this past week that a new 4K film restoration, from a collection of prime source materials, has been assembled to yield the best result possible for director Archie Mayo’s 1946 gangster fantasy tale, Angel on My Shoulder. It will be released as a newly-minted Blu-ray edition on Oct. 5.
Paul Muni, who had gone on the record after his stunning performance as Tony in Howard Hawks’ 1932 gangland masterpiece, Scarface, stating that he didn’t want to be typecast as a member of the criminal element. He would end up with six Best Actor nominations with wonderful performances in such biopics as The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Life of Emile Zola and Juarez, but this script from playwright Harry Segall and screenwriter Roland Kibbee was just too juicy a “gangster” part to pass up.
Here, Muni is career thug Eddie Kagle, who has just served another prison term, his pals decided that he had out-lived his usefulness and so his good buddy Smiley Williams (Hardie Albright) murders him. And sure enough, the vicious Kagle wakes to find himself in hell!!
Now the Devil, aka “Nick” (Claude Raines), decides to have some fun with Kagle since he is the spitting image of Judge Parker, a reformer who has been thwarting various schemes. The plan is simple, Kagle will take over the judge’s body and ruin his reputation.
However, the unruly Kagle, now in the judge’s body, upturns the applecart, falls in love with Parker’s fiancée, Barbara (Anne Baxter — The Razor’s Edge, All About Eve, The Ten Commandments) and despite his knee-jerk tendency to revert to his gangster ways ends up doing the right thing — even forgiving Smiley — in a bittersweet return to hell with Nick, but with conditions.
Bonus features include the 1946 Noveltoon, “Cheese Burglar” and a 1946 newsreel. The entire package — movie and bonus materials — can be played in “Movie Matinee” mode, which mimics the theatrical experience of the period.
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