Product Details

• Actors: Jack Benny, Alexis Smith, Dolores Moran, Allyn Joslyn, Reginald Gardiner
• Directors: Raoul Walsh
• Writers: Aubrey Wisberg, James V. Kern, Sam Hellman
• Producers: Jack L. Warner, Mark Hellinger
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Warner)
• VHS Release Date: December 23, 1993
• Run Time: 78 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302148677
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,057 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #85 in	Video > Comedy > By Year > 1940-1949
  #93 in	Video > Comedy > Farce

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "A Live-Action Cartoon", April 25, 2002

By	Lawrence Rapchak (Whiting, IN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

...Despite a few dull patches here and there(some of the Heaven scenes in and around Guy Kibee's office are pretty slow), this wildly imaginative novelty is more than just amusing---it's a real showcase for special effects in the year 1945. The amount of effects shots and set-ups is amazing, yielding a truly enchanting, off-beat film.

The incredible "Heaven's Orchestra" shot, with the camera soaring and swooping across the eternal rows of angelic instrumentalists (accompanied by Franz Waxman's very sophisticated "Moderne" theme), the miniature spinning earth that descends at a diagonal in Guy Kibee's office, the bizarre, almost surrealistic carnival scene (which probably added significantly to the film's over-all budget), the celestial elevator, the cool miniature street with moving cars(complete with headlights) over which the characters often dangle from the rooftop penthouse.....all are major elements which contribute to the film's overall cartoon-like lunacy.

And the stunt work----that's REALLY Allyn Josyln and John Alexander hanging on one another in the climatic scene, and Guy Kibee himself going over the roof backwards!

Add to this the incredible giant coffee pot, cup, spoon, etc, so cleverly introduced in the opening recording studio scene....and you have one heck of an entertaining film. Yeah, some of the script is a bit forced and lackluster, but, overall...in light of the crud which today is dubbed "classic"----come on!--"The Horn Blows at Midnight" is a GEM!

I love the tried-and-true device of seeing the real-life characters in the opening all appear in the dream in various roles. And the cast is magnificent, featuring (and wasting, in the case of Margaret Dumont) some of the best of the day. That Allyn Joslyn is a hoot--a fine, underrated actor who excelled in comic and straight roles. And to think that he and fellow "fallen angel" John Alexander had created the roles of two of the three Brewster brothers in "Arsenic and Old Lace" on Broadway just four years earlier (I know it's sacrilegious---but Joslynn should have been cast in the film version of "Arsenic"--he, with his wry, slightly fey mannerisms was obviously the way the playwright envisioned the character---not the hysterical mugging of Cary Grant--so out of his element in the "Arsenic" film).

One more cool thing about "Horn"---it is an amazing visual document of the mid 1940's. The recording studio, the hotel lobby, the restaurant, the nightclub where Jack Benny unsucessfully "sits in" with the band --- all beautifully detailed and strikingly photographed.

A truly unique and entertaining film.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thanks to all who took time to review this memorable film!, March 9, 2005

By	"Loopydloop" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just What's In That Paradise Coffee, Anyway?, April 24, 2005

By	Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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