The Horn Blows at Midnight on Omnibus

About

In 1945, Jack Benny starred in his last major motion picture, "The Horn Blows at Midnight," as a band member who dreams he's an angel sent to destroy the Earth. The film did respectable business but wasn't an overwhelming success (doubtlessly due to the timing, coming at the end of WW2) and Benny soon began joking about what a dismal failure the film was... which quickly became a running gag on his TV and radio shows, leading people to believe the movie actually was an epic bomb.

In 1949, the film was adapted as an episode of the "Ford Theater" radio show; the story was altered, the bookend dream-sequence portions were eliminated along with the film's antagonists, and it was steeped in anti-war sentimentality. Benny played the role of Athanael one final time for this episode of "Omnibus" which was broadcast live on November 29, 1953 and preserved on kinescope. This version was adapted from the radio show, but with the passage of time, the anti-war aspect was significantly toned down and even more of the film's gags were removed. There are several then-timely jokes about Athanael irresponsibly causing a freak smog which enveloped The Big Apple - in November 1953, mysterious smog in New York City was blamed for the deaths of 260 people, including renowned poet Dylan Thomas. For fans of classic television there are tons of familiar faces, including a young Harry Shearer ("This is Spinal Tap," "The Simpsons") in one of his earliest roles as a shoeshine boy. Like many of the other performers featured in this episode, Shearer went on to make several appearances on Benny's TV show.

The first video is an .mkv (Matroska, from which the OGG and h.264 were automatically derived) which is a direct dupe of the limited DVD; the second is an .mp4 (MPEG4) in which I twiddled with the settings to try to improve the picture quality - the black levels are deeper, the details sharpened, and I removed an extended reel-change blackout which was inexplicably included on the DVD. Since this was first broadcast in the days when copyrights were not displayed on live programs and there are no credits of any sort, it's my firm belief that the episode is in public domain.

Cast (In order of appearance): Alistair Cook - Host Lester Matthews - The Chief Dorothy Malone - Elizabeth Byron Foulger - Horatio Jack Benny - Athanael Frank Jaquet - Ludwig van Beethoven Rolph Sedan - Noah Lou Lubin - Newspaper Stand Owner Lee Millar - Dan Jeff Donnell - Helen Martin Dean - Jerry Harry Shearer - Johnny Benny Rubin - Cab Driver John Vosper - Hotel Desk Clerk ???? - Hotel Pageboy Hallene Hill - Mrs. Watson Beverly Washburn - Angela Ann Doran - Angela's Mother Roland "Rusty" Morris - Elevator Operator Roy Rowan - Radio Announcer Mahlon Merrick - Orchestra Leader

Directed by Ralph Levy Written by Leo Davis, Leonard Gershe, Howard Snyder and Hugh Wedlock Jr.

Human-made No record of this work says a model made it. What this means.

Archive

Internet Archive, in Vintage commercials

Licence or status

Public Domain Mark 1.0, as the Internet Archive states it.

Language

English

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed