Freebie Film Tips #17: Jack Benny Blows His Own Horn
Created | Updated Nov 17, 2012
Freebie Film Tips #17: Jack Benny Blows His Own Horn
Jack Benny, birthname Benjamin Kubelsky, is one of my favourite old-time entertainers. He was a talented violinist, so he made jokes about how his playing was so bad, it drove his teachers to suicide. He was one of the most generous people around, so he pretended to be so cheap, the cast of his radio and TV shows were always on the verge of revolt. He was modest, so he pretended to be conceited. You get the idea.
So when Benny's 1945 film, The Horn Blows at Midnight, was a flop, he didn't pretend otherwise. He and his mock-rival (but secret good friend) Fred Allen joked about it all the time. Surprisingly, the film itself is clever and funny, even though it doesn't include Benny's lifelong friend Naftaly Birnbaum, aka George Burns. It does have some good music and great gags.
Here's how to see it – you'll have to click every fifteen minutes:
Jack Benny, The Horn Blows at Midnight, 1945.
An hour-and-a-half of fun. The coffee commercial alone is worth the trip.
Why did this film fail? It was released eight days after the sudden death of FDR. Nobody was in the mood to laugh. Benny milked the box office bomb for laughs for the rest of his life on his radio and TV shows. All anybody had to say was, ominously, 'The HORN blows at MIDNIGHT. . . ' and the audience would laugh. But it's a very funny film, and I think it will make you laugh, too.
The plot? Oh, Jack Benny is a trumpeter in a radio orchestra. The sponsor is Paradise Coffee. The announcer wants to convince the audience that the coffee won't keep you awake at night. His soothing voice puts the orchestra to sleep. . . Benny has a dream about being an angel called Athanael, sent to Earth to blow the Last Trumpet. Of course, he would land in New York City, and there are crooks, and fallen-angel scam artists, etc.
Think of the 'angels' as naïve extraterrestrials. The angelic bureaucracy puts Starfleet to shame.
The special effects aren't George Lucas, but they're pretty impressive for 1945.
Take a trip in the time machine. Go on, you're getting sleepy. . .
