This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Alexis Smith.
It might be the end of the world as we know it, but no one feels fine in The Horn Blows at Midnight. A star vehicle for Jack Benny, The Horn Blows at Midnight has a good concept but is played too broadly for it to reach its potential.
An unsuccessful trumpeter (Benny) finds that the radio house band that he plays with is somewhat beneath his talents. His bandmate, harpist Elizabeth (Alexis Smith) does her best to perk him up but also endures the grandiose ideas of "the artist", who literally keeps hitting wrong notes during rehearsals before the radio show goes live. The radio show is sponsored by Paradise Coffee, which promises the listener to send him to sleep.
That's the trouble, as the soft narration does cause the trumpeter to nod off and begin to dream. Now, he is Athanael, an angel in the heavenly host. Here too in Heaven 1945-1946, Athanael is not particularly good. Despite his lack of skills, Athanael has an ally in the Department of Small Planet Management office. That is the angel Elizabeth (Smith again), who is sweet on Athanael. The department head or Chief (Guy Kibbee) has given Athanael a major assignment. The Boss has decided that Planet 339001 has to get destroyed. The creatures of this planet, also known as Earth, have gotten out of hand. Athanael is to blow the first four notes of the Judgment Day Overture, signaling the end of the world. He must do so at exactly midnight, not a minute before or after.
Landing at the Hotel Universe, Athaneal blows not his horn but his chance. Pretty cigarette girl Fran Blackstone (Dolores Moran) is also on the roof, about to commit suicide. Athaneal's bumbling has foiled an attempted robbery by debonair thief Archie Dexter (Reginald Gardiner), for which Archie blames Fran. His bumbling also saves her life, but he misses his cue.
Two beings thrilled that the world did not end are renegade angels Osidro (Allyn Joslyn) and Doremus (John Alexander). These two fallen angels have gone native long ago and hoodwink fellow angel Athaneal into thinking that they will show him the ropes. As he has failed in his mission, Athanael is now himself a fallen angel, a most reluctant one. Elizabeth pleads with the Chief to give Athaneal a second chance to blow his horn. He agrees, but it won't be easy. Osidro and Doremus are working feverishly to prevent Athaneal from completing his mission. They get Dexter and Fran to steal the trumpet, which Athaneal barely recovered. Will Athaneal manage to blow the world with his trumpet playing or will he wake up from his heavenly slumber?
I do not want to say that The Horn Blows at Midnight blew its chance to be funny. I think though that it was probably not the best idea to wrap a comedy around the end of the world. The film premiered shortly before the end of the Second World War. The nation had gone through a lot, seen a lot, endured a lot. All that misery and death came before the full horror of the Final Solution became widely known. As such, I do not understand who decided that a comedy about the world ending was what the public wanted to see.
Perhaps in different hands, Sam Hellman and James V. Kern's screenplay might have worked. Strange as it sounds, director Raoul Walsh was not those hands. There was something rather forced about the h humor, as if everyone behaved as those all this was funny but knew that it wasn't. The best way for me to phrase it is that things were broad. There was no real buildup to, for example, Osidro and Doremus. We hear about fallen angels, but these two were just there. Efforts at humor mostly fell flat. When the hotel security confronts Dexter about the missing elevator, he asks if he's getting blamed for it. Dexter says he did not steal the elevator, though he did steal Whistler's Mother.
The broadness continues when Fran, in part of the plot to steal Athaneal's trumpet, attempts to "seduce" him. As played by Moran and Benny, they know that it is supposed to be funny. They just did not make it funny. Worse, The Horn Blows at Midnight seems to have stolen a line from the Marx Brothers. As Fran demands that Athaneal hold her closer, he replies, "If I got any closer, I'd be standing behind you". That bit was heard in the 1937 film A Day at the Races.
Another thing that weakens The Horn Blows at Midnight is the casting. Jack Benny is a comedic genius, but his genius lies in his persona. You do not see Athaneal, well-meaning but bumbling angel while watching. You see Jack Benny, ham actor who is in on the joke. His voice, his delivery, his asides mannerisms are all from his radio and television show. It is pretty hard to separate the Jack Benny persona of the cheap, vain man when he is meant to be a different character.
Jack Benny would spend years mocking The Horn Blows at Midnight, using it as a punchline. He would have done better to have spent some of those pennies to buy up and burn every copy. I think everyone else did as good as they could with the material they had. Gardiner and Kibbee probably did the best as the sophisticated thief and the gruff but loveable Small Departments Chief. I wonder if a different movie, where Athaneal and Elizabeth have to stop Dexter from stealing the Horn of the Last Judgement would have worked better.
Alexis Smith, I think, did her best. I also think that her heart was not in the project. She at times looked genuinely frustrated at having to play second harp to Benny. Try as she might, Smith could not convince me that she was wild about Benny. If there is anything good here, it is the sadly brief sight of Marx Brothers foil Margaret Dumont early on, attempting an operatic number while still being a bit of a diva.
I think that there is a story rattling somewhere in The Horn Blows at Midnight. The film might be worth a remake in better hands. Angels we have heard on high, but few will want to sing the praises of The Horn Blows at Midnight.
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