The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945) is a comedy fantasy film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Jack Benny. Its biggest claim to fame, apart from its star, is its failure at the box office. The film had the misfortune to be released only eight days after the death of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This may have contributed to its poor reception, although the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, also dealing with the afterlife, opened on Broadway at roughly the same time and became a hit. Benny often exploited its failure for laughs in his popular radio and television comedy series The Jack Benny Program.