The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945): It Ain't Gabriel

When The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945) was released by Warner Brothers in 1945, it was a major box office dud. The comedy-fantasy just wasn't what audiences nearing the end of World War II were looking for. The financial failure was so profound that its star, Jack Benny, used it as comic fodder for years to come on his radio and television shows, and whether or not it was a factor, Benny never made a starring feature again. But, although the film has a reputation for being unfunny, I strongly beg to differ. When I was young, The Horn Blows at Midnight played annually on New Years Eve, due to its theme of great change at the midnight hour. It is filled with one gag and/or joke after another, some timely, many timeless.

The story is cute as well as comedic. As the film starts we find Benny as a trumpet player in a radio station orchestra. The drifting tones of the radio commercial announcer put him to sleep and in his slumber he is transported to Heaven 1945-46 (that's what the screen says, really), where untold scores of angelic heavenly hosts make up the grandest orchestra ever to behold. This lighthearted view of kingdom come offers a corporate scenario of eternity ~ even a Hollywood studio in 1945 perhaps ~ where orders come from "the front office". In Heaven, Jack is a naive, slow witted angel named Athanael, who plays trumpet in the celestial symphony. His girlfriend, Elizabeth, secretary to "the Chief", recommends him for the job of destroying the planet Earth, which has gotten out of hand. The task of planet destruction usually goes to the demolition expert (Gabriel?) but Athanael is given the task, since the Earth is one of the lesser planets, whose creation was "merely a six day job....practically slapped together".

Using the elevator of the swanky Hotel Universe in New York City as his cosmic transport, Athanael descends to find two fallen angels turned playboys, who manage to dissuade the nit wit from his task of Armageddon. Now a fallen angel himself, the bemoaned bugler must make his way around the Big Apple as a babe in the wood, even losing his trusty trumpet to a waiter from "Joisy" because he didn't have enough of something called 'dollas' to pay for his meal.

Gorgeous Alexis Smith is at her glamorous prime as Elizabeth, the harpist/secretary with the heavenly figure. She is merely window dressing for Benny's jokes but displays much style and grace. Also on hand as a pretty trinket is beautiful blonde Dolores Moran, a Warners starlet who always raised the temperature in her scenes. The rest of the cast is simply littered with superb character actors, offering a veritable who's who of supporting players. Suave slimeball Reginald Gardiner; ranting curmudgeon Guy Kibbee; tough and dumb hood Mike Mazurki; classic Marx Brothers foil Margaret Dumont; Little Rascal cum Baretta Bobby Blake; and the incomparable fussy & prissy Franklin Pangborn, who nearly steals the show. As fallen angels Osidro and Doremus, Allyn Joslin and John Alexander are wickedly decadent, offering the ex-patriot Athanael a job peddling stolen ladies foundation garments ~ Osidro: "The job for you is hot girdles" Athanael: "But I don't know anything about a girdle, hot or cold...I don't even know what a girdle is!"


The Horn Blows at Midnight has become a cult classic of sorts, its virtues and value discovered over time. It's a wonderfully creative film and very 1940's modern. It's Warners version of ultra chic 1945 with laughs thrown in all around, not only verbally but with heavy dashes of slapstick as well, furnishing not one but two hilarious cliffhanging (literally) episodes atop the roof of the Hotel Universe at midnight when Athanael must blow his horn. Clever and engaging, The Horn Blows at Midnight would make a great Christmas/New Years Eve double feature with Christmas in Connecticut (also 1945 from Warners). Try it, you may like it.