Jack Benny was a beloved radio comic and a pioneering television performer who came up through the vaudeville circuit and dabbled in movies. Of all his entertainment endeavors – he was universally popular for more than five decades — film was not his strongest suit. When he acted, he was always the version of Jack Benny the fans expected: inadequate as a violin player, self-conscious about his age (he was always 39), non-threatening, gently frustrated with his fellow human beings, ferociously tight with his money.
To the world, he played “himself.” If he was not a great actor, he knew how to address it. He made a joke about it. As he described The Horn Blows at Midnight: “It blew taps for my movie career.” It is likely his best-known movie since he made so much fun of it. Benny himself said his proudest film work was in To Be or Not to Be, a film released in 1943 that satirized the Nazis. This concept proved to be unpopular during wartime.
He was born Benjamin Kubelsky in 1894. He always claimed his hometown as Waukegan, Illinois, where he frequently returned after his entertainment success. He died the day after Christmas, 1974, at age 80. The Horn Blows at Midnight was released in April of 1945 and directed by Raoul Walsh. It was not technically his final movie, but it was his last lead film role.
In the movie, Benny’s character dreams he is the angel Athanael, third trumpet player in the heavenly orchestra. He is informed he has been chosen to destroy Earth – various problems are cited – by blowing a special trumpet exactly at midnight to signal the end of the world. Two other angels have failed before him and now live on Earth permanently. When Benny the Angel arrives on Earth, he is spotted by the Angel pair, who realize his mission and try to frustrate the plan.
There is a suicide attempt by a beautiful co-star – it really is bad on earth – and Benny the Angel manages to prevent it. As a result, he misses the midnight deadline and is now officially stuck on Earth. More humiliations follow until Benny gets one more chance to blow the horn to destroy the world. Other comic complications including a human chain dangling from a tall roof before Benny wakes up to announce it was all a dream. He would later use the same plot and storyline for a radio show.
