Angel on my Shoulder (1944)

When one watches The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby purely as entertainment, and not as reflections of serious theology, one may well wonder just what it is that the Devil gets from these acts of mischief.

Just who or what is the Devil?

And, if one does not humanize his persona, then how to understand or explain these acts of possession or biological reproduction?

There certainly is a long tradition of tales of the Devil interfering in human affairs, and in most, if not all of them the Devil is given all-too-human attributes.

Such is the case of this tale of the Devil (Claude Rains) who, bothered by the work of a judge (Paul Muni) who seems to be interfering with his damnation quota, arranges to have the body of the judge be possessed by the soul of a gangster (also Muni) just killed by a treasonous partner in crime (Hardie Albright) upon his release from prison.

Possession by evil spirits… Isn’t that the premise of many a Horror movie nowadays?

Well, sure.

But it’s also an opportunity for Comedy if one can ignore the aspect of the victim taken over against his will, their consciousness sent into limbo so that the evil soul can do as they will with the possessed vessel – What of the judge’s ‘lost time’? Who cares!

Too bad for the Devil that the soul he chose has his own agenda of revenge against his former partner; that once he occupies the judge’s body he can still feel for a former lover, or fall in love anew with the judge’s fiancé (Anne Baxter); or that, in general, human behavior is not as predictable as the Devil may think it is which will ruin his plans in virtually every single instance.

Odd that even though established that the soul is already damned, he is still allowed a measure of redemption by the end even when not escaping Hell.

Paul Muni smartly doesn’t bother with two different characterizations; once in the Judge’s body he is still very much his gangster persona established from before with all discrepancies explained by some sort of nervous breakdown the judge has.

Nearly all Comedy is provided by Claude Rains as he is alternatively intimidated by the gangster (though we may rightly suspect it’s all an act,) and foiled by the utter unpredictability of human nature.

Also with Onslow Stevens, George Cleveland and Erskine Sanford.