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My Easy Marketplace - Horn Blows at Midnight
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $76.99
Your Save: $ ( % )
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Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Starring: Jack Benny, Alexis Smith, Dolores Moran, Allyn Joslyn, Reginald Gardiner
Directed By: Raoul Walsh
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302148671
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6302148677
Label: MGM (Warner)
Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Warner)
Release Date: 1993-12-23
Running Time: 78
Studio: MGM (Warner)
Theatrical Release Date: 1945-04-28
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Absolutely a classic!
Comment: I've loved this gem of a comedy since I was a kid, and nothing else makes me feel better than dusting it off and watching it again with fresh eyes. Sharing the experience with friends seeing it for the first time is a particular joy, since many have never seen this wonderful comedy -- although they have heard the title. The talent of the actors and the sparkling script put this film head-and-shoulders above fantasy films of today.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Too Cold For Comfort?
Comment: Jack Benny and Alexis Smith will never win any popularity contests as the m,ost lovable stars in the movies. For both of them, there's a sheen of cold that keeps them from the complete warmth we love about our top stars, from Marilyn to John Wayne to Ingrid Bergman; for Benny and Smith, it's like the old carton of sherbet that Debbie Reynolds finds in her freezer when Albert Brooks comes home to live with her once again. He opens it, it's all coated with ice, and Debbie explains, "Honey, that's just its protective shell!"
However this vehicle plays up to their strengths, with Benny as a peculiar angel (a trumpeter with a delusion of angelhood) and Alexis Smith looking radiant as she pretends to play a harp in a 40s orchestra. She's no Harpo Marx but the instrument itself suits her down to the ground. The big set-pieces and the heaven sequences are designed and photographed by Robert Burks in an amazing simulacrum of classic Surrealist cinema; Burks, of course, would later shoot all the great Hitchcock pictures of the 1950s, from Strangers on a Train to Vertigo, and he anticipates some of the magic realism of those pictures with his imagery here, it's just confounding what he was able to do. You'd think that George Pal was behind these fantasies.
I don't know why some movies just slip into obscurity, and maybe the financial debacle of this one has given it a bad name, but it is prime for rediscovery now. If it's a failure it's a fascinating one. Just give it a chance and you'll find yourself with your jaw down on the floor. Had HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT been signed by Ernst Lubitsch, or Michael Powell, it would be popping up on Ten Best Lists all the time, and Criterion would have issued a deluxe DVD edition of it long ago (a limited edition, probably and it would have been taken off the market thus causing artificial price increases all over the internet).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointing compared to Benny's usual comedy.
Comment: The Horn Blows at Midnight is one of those enchanting movies that deal with angels or spirits visiting the Earth and interacting with mortals. Other films along the same lines include The Bishops Wife, A Guy Named Joe, That's The Spirit, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Heaven Can Wait, On Borrowed Time, Angel On My Shoulder, Beyond Tomorrow, and more recently, City of Angels and The Dust Factory.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that Jack Benny was one of the most talented comics of his time, The Horn Blows At Midnight is one of the least enchanting of the films I've just listed, possibly excepting Angel On My Shoulder and Heaven Can Wait (1943). It has some great actors including Alexis Smith (Gentleman Jim, Beau James), Allyn Joslyn (Only Angels Have Wings), Reginald Gardiner (Claudia, Cluny Brown, etc.), and Guy Kibbee (Little Lord Fauntleroy).
Benny plays a trumpet player in a radio band who, put to sleep by a mesmerizing coffee comercial, dreams that he's an angel sent to destroy the Earth. It seems this little planets out of control, morally at least, so the head angel in charge of small planets (Guy Kibbee) sends him to blow his horn at midnight atop the Universal Hotel, signalling judgment day. The premise has plenty of funny potential, and there is just enough comedy along the way to recommend the movie, but the story doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and never does, right up to the cop-out ending, which was a little disappointing.
Jack Benny is my favorite comedian, so imagine my disappointment when I found this movie a little disappointing. I'm tempted to give it 4 or 5 stars just because Benny's in it, but I can resist that temptation only because I know he had several better films. My own favorite is The Meanest Man in The World; others include George Washington Slept Here, Charlie's Aunt, and The Broadway Melody of 1936. Hopefully some of these better films will become available on DVD some day. Having said all this, I still recommend the film to Jack Benny fans or anyone who likes these old angel or spirit movies - if you like one of those movies I listed above and want more like it, here it is. But if you haven't seen Jack Benny before, don't judge him by this one; check out an old TV episode or one of his other movies.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Just What's In That Paradise Coffee, Anyway?
Comment: 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.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thanks to all who took time to review this memorable film!
Comment: I still remember seeing this film as a child and it really stuck with me even though it has been many years since I last viewed it. I have recently been rediscovering Jack Benny through his television show and I find him to be a master of the more subtle, character based humor that is so lacking in today's comics. I had to marvel at the one reviewer in this grouping that called Benny one of those old-fashioned comics who is unfunny. I fear that reviewer simply does not understand subtlety and therefore labels it as archaic or outdated, rather like people who are "bored" with shows and films that are not in color. It is sad to see a younger generation completely write off the studied, carefully crafted, measured comedy of these masters of Benny's era for the likes of Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey. And, though I also enjoy the performances of the latter, their styles are clearly broader and less subtle than Benny or many of his contemporaries and are not necessarily better because they are newer and in color. Sigh. Well, to each his own, I guess. Personally, I think this film is a treasure and I can only say that I wonder where the DVD version of this title is. Wake up you guys at Warners! This title is selling for big bucks, used and on VHS! I think there is a market out there that you might want to look at.
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