Independent Films, Film Profiles

The Horn Blows at Midnight
by Raoul_Walsh

The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945) is a comedy fantasy starring Jack Benny, directed by Raoul Walsh and co-starring Alexis Smith, Dolores Moran, Allyn Joslyn, and Reginald Gardiner. Its biggest claim to fame, apart from its star, is its failure at the box office, and this fact was exploited often for laughs in Benny's popular radio comedy series The Jack Benny Program.The plot involves the third trumpet player in the orchestra of a radio program, named the Paradise Coffee Program, who falls asleep listening to the reading of the advertisement: "The coffee that makes you sleep." He dreams he is the angel Athanael, a trumpeter in the orchestra of heaven, who is such a terrible musician that he is relieved of his position and sent on a mission to Earth to blow the "Last Trumpet" at midnight, signaling the end of the world. Complications arise when two fallen angels named Osidro and Doremus want to continue their physical existence of pursuing pleasures. While Athanael encounters experiences of mortal life, such as eating food and the need for money, the fallen angels try to prevent Athanael from going through with his mission by having his trumpet stolen.The script was re-worked into an episode of radio's Ford Theater, broadcast March 04, 1949. Jack Benny reprised his character of Athaniel, with Claude Rains now playing the Chief. This time the story was told in a straight-forward fashion, with Benny actually playing an angel sent to Earth to blow the horn, as opposed to the dream scenario of the film. The radio story focuses on Athaniel's moral dilemma about whether or not the people of Earth, just suffering World War II, deserved to be extinguished with the Earth or given another chance.