This may have contributed to its poor reception, although the film's negative reviews might have also impacted it, as the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, also dealing with the afterlife, opened on Broadway at roughly the same time and became a hit.

When he is deposited at the Hotel Universe via the building's elevator, he accidentally foils a robbery attempt by suave guest Archie Dexter (Reginald Gardiner) and his girlfriend accomplice, Fran Blackstone (Dolores Moran).

Complications arise when two fallen angels named Osidro (Allyn Joslyn) and Doremus (John Alexander), also guests at the hotel, recognize Athanael and learn of his assignment.

It never, in spite of every one’s best intentions, gets much funnier than that….It is a pleasant change for Mr. Benny, something far from his wisecracking radio self….The picture, never getting anywhere near the hilarious, is at its pleasantest when it caricatures a broadcast or pictures heaven as a stately bureaucracy.”[2] The New York Post was ambivalent as well: “It takes a bold group of people to rush in on the territory covered so beautifully in ‘Green Pastures.’ The wisdom of this is questionable from several points of view, but the failure is never due to lack of trying….There is violence and slapstick, there are the wiles of Reginald Gardner and the temptations of Dolores Moran, and there are wild teeterings at the top of tall buildings.

This time the story was told in a straightforward fashion, with Benny actually playing an angel sent to Earth to blow the horn, as opposed to the dream scenario of the film.

A live television adaptation of the radio script was presented as a segment of Omnibus on November 29, 1953, with Benny again playing Athaniel, and Dorothy Malone as Elizabeth.

In 2013, this version was issued on an exclusive DVD available to those who purchased The Jack Benny Program: The Lost Episodes from distributor Shout Factory's website.