As a kid I did enjoy the long series of poverty row comedies of Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and company, under the name of the East Side Kids or Dead End Kids. It is funny that from being the co-stars of the big production, DEAD END, and then through others like ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, ANGELS WASH THEIR FACES, and THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL, the gang of young actors ended up in this series of B features or worse. But this did not necessarily prove a disaster. They kids were good comics, especially Hall and Gorcey. Ironically though only one made it off the films on his own: Gabriel Dell, who worked with Steve Allen and others. And Dell actually (gradually) played characters that worked at loggerheads with Gorcey, Hall, and the others, usually as a junior heavy.
UP IN SMOKE was one of their last films, and actually deals with a curious twist on an old legend or story. Sach (Hall) makes a wish that if he could he would give his soul to the Devil for better luck. Enter the most cherubic of film Satans, Byron Foulger. Normally Foulger was a harried clerk or bank teller or something like that. Frequently he was a murder victim. But here he is a Devil (actually not THE Devil), who is trying to earn his station from his new master. So he is sent to answer Sach's wish.
What is the difference then between this situation and the devils in HEAVEN CAN WAIT (also a comedy), or ALIAS NICK BEAL, or THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER. The approach to the character of the Devil is different in each, though Ray Milland and Walter Huston are certainly businesslike and deadly (Laird Cregar is too, but also fair minded when he is aware of errors). Foulger though adds something that only Claude Rains (as the Devil in ANGEL ON MY SHOULDER) faced - that Satan might hot be able to control his evil actions. Rains keeps trying to twist situations to use Paul Muni to destroy a reformer's public face. Instead he finds various other small fry stepping in and wrecking things (but doing it when they are willingly doing evil - so he can't really complain). Foulger finds an interesting variant due to his "Victim" Sach: What happens if you have an idiot whom you have agreed to grant wishes to? For the running joke of the film is that Foulger keeps on granting wishes that are supposed to benefit Sach, but through the bungling of the idiot he loses all benefits and they go to third parties who have not made deals with the Devil. Foulger even complains he is not supposed to give away freebies to people. Towards the end Satan is so put out by Foulger's failure with Sach that he takes away one of the two little horns on his forehead (usually covered by his homburg).
It is a small reason to recall this film, but for a curious variant on an old theme I congratulate the screenwriters here.
UP IN SMOKE was one of their last films, and actually deals with a curious twist on an old legend or story. Sach (Hall) makes a wish that if he could he would give his soul to the Devil for better luck. Enter the most cherubic of film Satans, Byron Foulger. Normally Foulger was a harried clerk or bank teller or something like that. Frequently he was a murder victim. But here he is a Devil (actually not THE Devil), who is trying to earn his station from his new master. So he is sent to answer Sach's wish.
What is the difference then between this situation and the devils in HEAVEN CAN WAIT (also a comedy), or ALIAS NICK BEAL, or THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER. The approach to the character of the Devil is different in each, though Ray Milland and Walter Huston are certainly businesslike and deadly (Laird Cregar is too, but also fair minded when he is aware of errors). Foulger though adds something that only Claude Rains (as the Devil in ANGEL ON MY SHOULDER) faced - that Satan might hot be able to control his evil actions. Rains keeps trying to twist situations to use Paul Muni to destroy a reformer's public face. Instead he finds various other small fry stepping in and wrecking things (but doing it when they are willingly doing evil - so he can't really complain). Foulger finds an interesting variant due to his "Victim" Sach: What happens if you have an idiot whom you have agreed to grant wishes to? For the running joke of the film is that Foulger keeps on granting wishes that are supposed to benefit Sach, but through the bungling of the idiot he loses all benefits and they go to third parties who have not made deals with the Devil. Foulger even complains he is not supposed to give away freebies to people. Towards the end Satan is so put out by Foulger's failure with Sach that he takes away one of the two little horns on his forehead (usually covered by his homburg).
It is a small reason to recall this film, but for a curious variant on an old theme I congratulate the screenwriters here.