The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945)

The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945) is a comedy fantasy film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Jack Benny. Its biggest claim to fame, apart from its star, is its failure at the box office. The film had the misfortune to be released only eight days after the death of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This may have contributed to its poor reception, although the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, also dealing with the afterlife, opened on Broadway at roughly the same time and became a hit. Benny often exploited its failure for laughs in his popular radio and television comedy series The Jack Benny Program.

Synopsis

Athanael (Jack Benny), the third trumpet player in the orchestra of a late night radio show sponsored by Paradise Coffee (motto: "It's Heavenly"), falls asleep listening to the announcer, who is doing his best to prove it is "the coffee that makes you sleep." Athanael dreams he is an angel (junior grade) and a trumpeter in the orchestra of Heaven. Due to the praise of his girlfriend Elizabeth (Alexis Smith), the assistant of the deputy chief of the department of small planet management (Guy Kibbee), he is given the mission of destroying planet 339001 (Earth) and its troublesome inhabitants by blowing the "Last Trumpet" at exactly midnight, signaling the end of the world.

Actors