Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Executscan Expected more

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

classicsoncall Jack Benny probably could have cut himself some slack over this picture, after all, it was all virtually a dream sequence so none of it had to make any sense. And if his acting was less than exemplary - dream sequence! He looked older than thirty nine - dream sequence! You see, it's easy to blame it all on the dream sequence business.Usually it's this type of picture that irritates me but this time you know it's a dream right up front so you can go along with the premise. The writers put together some clever gimmicks like the hourly twinges endured by Osidro (Allyn Joslyn) and Doremus (John Alexander), along with Slippy Tompkins' Tomcats and Tarzola the Rocket Man. The hotel elevator business was kind of a neat touch too.OK, so it's not Oscar material but who expected that? I always liked jack Benny as a performer, even though I prefer his variety show format and TV sketches. As a member of the Third Phalanx, Fifteenth Cohort, he did a reasonable enough job here to garner a few chuckles. All the rest of it - well, dream sequence.

winter24601 This movie is very mediocre. Jack Benny isn't used nearly as well as he could be, and the script is very weak. I can't stand any movie that uses the "it was just a dream" cheat to get the hero out of a difficult situation, and this one does it very poorly. We're told at the beginning of the movie it's a dream, and I quickly lost interest from that point onward.On the other hand, Jack Benny made a 1-hour radio version of this movie for The Ford Theater in 1949. That version isn't great; it's like most comedy from that era that hasn't worn as well as those from earlier or later time periods. However, it has a better script, and it is NOT a dream! More importantly, whoever did the update was able to come up with a pretty good ending for a story that sets up an impossible situation (destroying the world isn't typically considered a good ending in a comedy). The radio version's ending was very timely for 1949, and a little sad listening to it today.If you want to hear it, the radio version is relatively easy to locate on the internet. Just search for "The Horn Blows at Midnight" and "Ford Theater", and you should be able to find multiple sites with the mp3.

Dejael This film is often maligned in the critical press as being so bad that it was a terrible bomb (and was facetiously by Benny himself in his later radio and TV career, as the biggest bomb of his career. He was using it for comedy, playing it for laughs.)However, it was not a bomb at all, and was a modest success when first released in April 1945.The real reason this movie bombed at the box office was timing. It was released right at the end of World War 2, after Hitler had ravaged almost all of Europe, and Japan had made a colossal mess out of the South Pacific, and then WE nuked TWO of their cities to stop them!People then were very sensitive about issues like life and death, Heaven and Hell, even in a comedy context, in America. Almost every family had lost someone near and dear to them in the War, and they didn't want to be reminded of these kinds of things even in a Hollywood movie, at least for a few years until STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (1947) in beautiful Technicolor starring David Niven and Kim Hunter proved that the postwar era had begun.If only WB had waited until the fall of 1945 to release this, it would have fared much better at the box office and with movie critics far and wide, and given Jack Benny something to be proud of, instead of a long-running gag in his later years. Dejael

crispy_comments Not really as terrible as my rating might seem to indicate. This movie is mildly amusing, has imaginative set design, and there are some visually stunning shots. I'd give it an average rating of 5 or so, except it loses points for a couple important reasons.First...the stars.This was my introduction to Jack Benny and I was not impressed. I didn't find him funny at all - which could be the script's weakness as well, but Benny's physical presence & personality should've made up for poor writing...and didn't. He is one of the least charming, least attractive "leading men" I've ever seen. I understand he had a very popular radio show... well, maybe film just wasn't his medium.Alexis Smith plays Benny's unlikely love interest, and her character isn't really developed - she might as well be made of cardboard. Guy Kibbee is fun, but woefully underused.Second...the story.The script makes a slight attempt to Say Something Serious about the state of the planet. The angels plan to destroy Earth because... we suck. So we'd better start behaving better! I guess. The message is vague and there's no real follow-through. This sort of storyline - the end of the world due to humanity's failure - feels like it *should* be taken seriously. It doesn't fit in such a fluffy film.I absolutely LOATHE the "it was only a dream" plot device. Especially when it's revealed to be a dream at the beginning of the movie! What the heck is the point of *that*? Knowing from the start that everything you're about to see, isn't really happening, kind of sucks the fun out of it. The story becomes pointless and meaningless. It feels like they just couldn't figure out how to resolve the whole Earth-is-doomed thing. There was no way out of it (unless the writers went with a more serious treatment - maybe a twist on "It's A Wonderful Life", yeah, this time it's up to a human to convince an angel that humanity is worth saving...call it "It's A Wonderful World After All"). Anyway, after Benny wakes up, nothing really changes in his life, and nothing has been learned. Utterly pointless.I can see how people might enjoy "The Horn Blows At Midnight" if they're in the mood for something surreal and silly (although it never hits the heights of truly inspired silliness such as you'll find in a Marx Brothers movie, for instance). So, not as stinky as it's reputed to be, but FAR from the lost comedy classic some would like to believe.