The Horn Blows at Midnight

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The Horn Blows at Midnight

Directed by	Raoul Walsh
Produced by	Mark Hellinger
Starring	Jack Benny Alexis Smith Dolores Moran Allyn Joslyn Reginald Gardiner Guy Kibbee
Music by	Franz Waxman
Cinematography	Sidney Hickox
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	April 20, 1945 (U.S. release)
Running time	78 min
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

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.

[edit] Plot

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.

[edit] Legacy

In addition to Benny's jokes on the film, composer Franz Waxman reworked some of his music for the film in a comic Overture for Orchestra that he performed on occasion.