The Horn Blows at Midnight

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

This film was an ongoing joke with Jack Benny as at the time of its release it took a flop at the box office. However, time has treated this comedy/fantasy well and if you give it a try you will find a truly original comic masterpiece. Here is a film with many 1990's themes...angels, the end of the world, great visual effects, sex, and slapstick comedy. Maybe it was a little ahead of its time. Great performances from Jack Benny, Alexis Smith, and Guy Kibbee as well as a memorable "Looney Tune" style score from the great Franz Waxman. Give this zany 1945 film a chance as you will be surprised how wild they could get back then and how funny and strange an "old" film can be.

Even though I cannot for the life of me wrap my mind around the concept of a coffee that puts you to sleep Jack Benny's The Horn Blows At Midnight is not as bad as the reputation it has. A reputation by the way that Benny himself gave the film. It was a running gag on his radio and television show that Benny forsook movie making because of the bad reviews the film received.

Seeing it today it's not as bad as all that, in fact it has a few funny moments. Benny is a trumpeter in a radio studio orchestra and he falls asleep during the announcer's commercial for Paradise Coffee, the coffee that makes you sleep. In his dream Benny becomes an angel playing trumpet in a heavenly orchestra, larger than anything Leonard Bernstein ever directed. He gets an assignment from one of the bosses Guy Kibbee to blow his heavenly trumpet at midnight to signal the utter destruction of a minor planet the natives call Earth.

Needless to say Benny bungles the job and the film is his effort to complete his assignment. Kibbee's not pleased and he sends Alexis Smith down from heaven to babysit Jack. Later on Kibbee himself shows up. There are a couple of fallen angels played by Allyn Joslyn and John Alexander who like the life they've got on earth now. And there's Reginald Gardiner who's a musician and a society burglar with his assistant Dolores Moran who Benny interrupts mid crime and a host of other familiar movie faces which in itself is reason enough to watch The Horn Blows At Midnight.

Jack plays some tribute to Harold Lloyd with some stunts at the climax involving some great height. There's a gag involving a human pendulum that was later used with other familiar faces in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Jack also becomes rocket man at one point, clearly copying Bob Hope being shot out of a cannon in The Road To Zanzibar.

Don't believe the hype about The Horn Blows At Midnight, you might actually like it.

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.

How can any comedy with Jack Benny and a supporting cast that includes Margaret Dumont, Reginald Gardiner, John Alexander, Allyn Joslyn, Ethel Griffies, Mike Mazurki, Franklin Pangborn and Guy Kibbe be that bad???

Well, it's easy to see why this one just fell short of the mark. The script is a hodgepodge about a trumpeter who must redeem himself by returning to earth on a special mission. His girlfriend is played by the lovely Alexis Smith who shows a flair for light comedy in this caper.

Relying on a succession of sight gags to keep things moving, it's all done in brisk screwball/fantasy style under Raoul Walsh's direction. You can spot the youthful Bobby Blake in the park sequence as the boy who won't give up Benny's trumpet.

The heavenly sequences are done with a certain style that is missing in the earthbound adventures--but the uneven film is not nearly as bad as Benny claimed it to be.