Gangster Paul Muni (not the greatest actor) arrives in a low-budget and unimaginative hell, no worse than a stoker room on an old ship, but he's too thick to realise this and that the Devil (Claude Rains) is making a deal with him. Bug-eyed Muni agrees to become a Judge so that he can ruin his career (in a not very clear or convincing plot line) but he falls of course for Judge's girlfriend Anne Baxter and she, despite his gangster slang and rough manners doesn't seem to notice and reciprocates. Meanwhile Muni seeks revenge on gangster who did him in (Hardie Albright).
You know what? Harry Segall's story could have been shaped into a real classic, picked up by a studio (this was independent), recast and rewritten, with a proper Devil character like Laird Cregar in Heaven Can Wait (not that Rains isn't as chilly and efficient as ever). As it stands it's a bit of a flop, but watchable.
Would have loved to have seen what Buñuel would have done with it!
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