The Horn Blows at Midnight

Jack Benny was a fabulous comedian who was very successful in radio and television, and made a few films. This one, "The Horn Blows at Midnight," was one that apparently wasn't a big hit - one hears everything from it bombed to did okay but no smash. Benny, however, made a lot of jokes about how it died at the box office.

Maybe the film works better today than it did toward the end of World War II, but it's fun to watch. Benny plays a trumpet player stuck on a harpist (Alexis Smith). She helps him get a radio job playing during the "Paradise Coffee Program." The coffee, instead of keeping you awake, however, advertises that it helps one sleep and have pleasant dreams. During a broadcast, Benny falls asleep and dreams he's an angel dispatched to earth to blow a trumpet and start the world's end. Being Jack Benny, he has a few problems.

The film has some very funny sections, including Ethanael (Benny) in a huge cup of coffee, nearly drowning. Elevators are used to transport the angels (and there's a shortage of them in heaven, by the way), and when the angels land on earth, they're in the lobby of a New York hotel.

Benny and Smith costar with Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Dumont and Guy Kibbee, all extremely talented at comedy. The script, unfortunately, doesn't support them as much as it should, so the overall effect is spotty.

Nevertheless, this is a very entertaining movie for the most part with some good ideas and good direction. If only the script had been a little stronger - it would have been a classic.

If you have to watch one Jack Benny movie, this one would probably be the one to watch. As other reviewers have noted, this movie bombed at the box office after its release and Benny joked about this fact often in his monologues. Even though it was poorly received at the time it came out, its stands up better now. Its best when watched not just as a comedy but as a parable that has timeless themes, that are not just relevant to the 1940's.

Good versus evil, greed versus generosity, heaven versus life on earth. The "fish out of water" sequences where Jack Benny, as an angel, struggles to adjust to the realities of life on earth, are also very funny and timeless. All that and Jack Benny's warm and funny screen presence make this an appealing picture.

In his long running radio and television show, Jack Benny often built jokes around THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT--a movie described as so awful that it put an end to his movie career. These jokes always got a laugh, but rumors of the film's failure were really only comic exaggeration; true, it had not been a major hit, but neither was it a major failure. And if Benny's film appearances were few and far between after 1945, this was more a matter of his incredibly popular radio and television series than with a lack of offers.

THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT is not a great film, but it is a very interesting one and quite often a very entertaining one. The story concerns a trumpet player (Benny) in love with a harpist (Alexis Smith)--who gets him a radio job on the "Paradise Coffee Program," which advertises a coffee that promises a gentle sleep and sweet dreams. And dream he does, but one would not call it sweet: he dreams he is an angel sent to earth to blow the trumpet that will destroy the world.

Although the script is a bit weak, it has some really great concepts. Heaven is a bureaucracy beset by an endless orchestra and a shortage of angel-power. Elevators take angels to earth, right to the lobby of a New York hotel--and tie up elevator traffic, much to the annoyance of guests. And fallen angels lie in wait to trip Ethanael up! The art direction is extremely fine, dribbling comic surrealism with tremendous flair. In perhaps the film's most memorable scene, Ethanael finds himself drowning in a gigantic cup of coffee. Paradise Coffee, no doubt! Benny, co-star Alexis Smith, and such memorable characters as Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Dumont, and Guy Kibbe perform the show with as much energy as they can muster, and at it's best the movie is hilariously over-the-top. The script lets them down once too often for comfort, but even so the whole thing makes for an entertaining show. Recommended as imaginative, often extremely clever fluff.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Jack Benny and a magnificent supporting cast help keep your interest in this lightweight, yet highly imaginative, fanciful comedy about an angel in charge of destroying the Earth. Lots of great sight gags and double entendres keep things going. Additionally, the script if rife with sadistic ironies reminiscent of O'Henry and Mark Twain. If you've never seen it, pull up the ottoman and enjoy.

A surreal comedy from Warner Bros., apparently made while studio heads were on vacation. How else do we explain such inspired lunacies as a hotel elevator to heaven, angels with periodic bouts of delirium tremens (likely what the writers were suffering), or a giant coffee service hanging from the side of a skyscraper! Somehow this exotica got from storyboard to screen without the usual deadening hand of studio convention. It's pretty funny too, although the big screen is not the best venue for Jack Benny, whose personal brand of humor shows best on radio or tv. Still, the laughs are there among the general weirdness, and anyone who turns down the sound of the final scene should experience a nightmare of urban existence as frightening as any from vintage film noir, with Benny literally drowning in a sea of caffeine. This is also a chance for men to scope out that heavenly body known as Alexis Smith. Her statuesque bearing was probably a little too stiff for major stardom, but no one ever looked better in a toga or the high fashions of the day. All in all, this inventive little comedy was far ahead of its time, and despite Benny's running radio gag, possesses all the underpinnings of a minor cult classic.