Benny toots his own horn
Apocalyptic comedy enjoyable, despite sour notes
Jack Benny went to great lengths to convince the public that his film The Horn Blows At Midnight (1945) was the absolute worst film ever made. He slammed the film so often in his TV and radio programs that it became a running gag. (In one episode, a dejected Benny comes home early from a night at the drive-in, explaining that part of the way through Horn, the projectionist committed suicide.)
Despite all this good-natured thumbdownery, one wonders what Benny really thought of it. There’s no such thing as bad publicity after all, and Benny’s tactics probably sent hundreds of curious viewers to check out just how awful the film really was. Surely a man like Benny, who was capable of tinkering with his own public image (playing a penny-pinching miserly version of himself on TV, when in real life he was very generous), isn’t above using a little reverse psychology on audiences and critics.
Whatever his true intentions, it is Benny’s constant belittlement of The Horn Blows at Midnight that kept interest in the film alive. The film itself (although no masterpiece) is not nearly as terrible as Benny would have us believe. It’s a film that fits comfortably in the middle range, the "worth checking out" category.
The originality and quality of the material is all over the place – jokes range from the ground-breaking to the most threadbare old gags, from Oscar Wildean wit to flat-on-your-face groaners.
The concept itself is certainly original: Benny plays Athaniel, an angel who plays trumpet in the Heavenly Choir. Summoned before one of Heaven’s many Deputy Chiefs (who grumbles that Heaven should let in more big businessmen to handle all the red tape), Athaniel is assigned to destroy an insignificant little ball of dirt known as Planet #339001. (Go on. Just guess.) The planet – the name of which the Chief can’t recall – is overrun with vice, strife and corruption, and orders from the Front Office are to simply obliterate it. ("Created rather hurriedly, as I recall." "Just a six-day job, wasn’t it?" "Practically slapped together. Take a good look, because we’re going to slap it apart.") Planetary destruction is a relatively simple process – all Athaniel needs to do is travel incognito to New York City, and use a holy trumpet to blow the first four notes of the "Judgement Day Overture" at precisely midnight. Eastern Standard Time, of course.
Once in the Big Apple, Athaniel misses his opportunity to blow the horn when he takes the time to prevent a cigarette girl from committing suicide. The scene is played for laughs, with much dangling from the hotel rooftop (although this is nothing compared to the rooftop dangling scenes yet to come.) Stuck on Earth (there, I said it), Athaniel tries to toot the big apocalypse on the following night, with similar success. And so on....
The scenes on Earth really can’t compare visually or scriptwise with the scenes in Heaven – they obviously blew most of the budget on the latter. Still, the climax is memorable, as a string of five people dangle precariously from the rooftop, wildly swinging in the wind, while Benny drops into a gigantic coffee cup on a billboard, and the audience wonders whether or not he’ll be able to obliterate the planet before plunging to his death. Hectic! |
