In
an episode of the Jack Benny radio show from 1948, Jack and Mary Livingstone
are being driven to the Warner Bros. studios in his "trusty" Maxwell
by his butler Rochester (Eddie Anderson). They are stopped at the gate by the studio guard,
voiced by the wonderful Mel Blanc. When the guard demands identification in
order to be admitted, Jack tells him that he is Jack Benny. The guard still
demands ID. Benny pleads with him to recognize him: "…after all, I made a
film here a few years ago, The Horn Blows
at Midnight…I am sure you remember that!" "Remember it??? I
directed it!!!" replies Blanc as the guard. Such amusing set-ups became
some of Jack Benny's most famous self-deprecating jokes. The Horn Blows at Midnight has become legendary because of Benny's
making fun of it but as we can now see through this DVD, the comedy
legend was being unnecessarily harsh. The Warner Archive's release of
the film gives us a chance to evaluate this 1945 film for ourselves. People who
can remember the endless jokes Benny made at the expense of this much-maligned movie
will be surprised to learn that it was directed by the great Raoul Walsh
and boasted a great score by Franz
Waxman. Benny is backed by a wonderful Warner Bros. supporting cast: Guy
Kibbee, John Alexander, Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Dumont, Allyn Joslyn,
Reginald Gardiner, Mike Mazurki, a young Robert Blake, and the beautiful Alexis
Smith. The production values are high and it has some good special effects for
its time. So why the jokes?
The
main answer is that it did disappointing business at the box office. One
possible reason for the poor reception is that it was released within the same
week that President Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Another possible reason is that,
although it is a Jack Benny movie and Benny is very good in it, it is not the
familiar Jack Benny persona that the public had come to know and love through
his #1 top-rated radio show.
He
plays Athaneal, a questionable trumpet player in a radio studio orchestra that
is playing in a broadcast for a program sponsored by Paradise Coffee ("The Coffee That Makes You Sleep"). Athaneal actually falls asleep during the
broadcast. He dreams that he is an angel in Heaven who is being sent back down
to planet number 339001 -- "Earth," a six-day project rush job -- to
blow Gabriel's Horn at midnight to bring an end to that planet.
Here
we have the first thing that people found fault with: they make Jack Benny an
inept trumpeter. A trumpeter? Come on…everyone knows Jack Benny was an inept
violinist. Oh, well. He reaches planet number 339001 (Earth) by borrowing a
Times Square hotel's elevator to get there. The always wonderful Franklin
Pangborn plays the prissy hotel detective trying to solve the mystery of how an
elevator just disappears. Once he's arrived, Benny plays the part with naive
wonder as an angel back on Earth after being dead for 250 years. As a matter of
fact, he died in New York, or "New Amsterdam" as it was called when
he was last there. He has to contend with two "fallen angels" played
so wonderfully by great character actors John Alexander ("Teddy" from
Arsenic and Old Lace) and Allyn
Joslyn, who know that once Athaneal blows Gabriel's Horn it's down south to a
warmer climate for them because they're no longer welcome in Heaven. The only
side effect that they suffer on Earth is a comic case of convulsions on the
hour every hour ("Well, that one wasn't so bad." "No,
comparatively mild."). All the aforementioned character actors meet up for
a surrealistic rooftop climax as Athaneal races the clock and the
"villains" while getting tangled up with a big neon advertisement
atop the Times Square Hotel. Will he see to it that the horn blows at midnight?
This
film gives you an opportunity to see Jack Benny play a part other than
"Jack Benny." Are there any of the well-known Benny mannerisms? Sure,
we can see glimpses. The Benny walk is there, of course. His ineptitude is a
major plot device. The closest gag involving his epic "cheapness" is
a joke involving his heavenly boss played by the great Guy Kibbee telling him
that down on planet number 339001 he will need some "money." When he
hands him the dollar bills, Athaneal asks: "What are dollars?" Yeah,
right? Jack Benny asking what dollars are!
The overall picture and sound of the
Warner Archive's region-free DVD are very good and the original trailer is included. At 78 minutes it is an excellent Warner
Bros. comedy. A great non-Jack Benny Jack Benny film. Get this one.