The Music Box

The Music Box is a Laurel and Hardy short film comedy released in 1932. It was directed by James Parrott, produced by Hal Roach and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film, which depicts the pair attempting to move a piano up a long flight of steps, won the first Academy Award for Best Live Action Short (Comedy) in 1932. In 1997, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The short is widely seen as the most iconic Laurel and Hardy short, with the featured stairs becoming a popular tourist attraction.
Plot
In a music store, a woman (Hazel Howell) orders a player piano as a surprise birthday gift for her husband. She tells the manager (William Gillespie) her address—1127 Walnut Avenue—and he hires the Laurel and Hardy Transfer Company, recently founded by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, to deliver the piano in their horse-drawn freight wagon.
The duo soon learn from a postman (Charlie Hall) that the home is at the top of an incredibly long stairway. Trying to heave the box up the steps, they encounter a nursemaid pushing a baby carriage down the steps; in trying to let her pass, they knock the piano back down the stairs. After the woman laughs at them, Stan angrily kicks her in the rear, causing her to punch him back and hit Ollie over the head with a milk bottle. As Stan and Ollie try to heft the piano back up the stairs, the woman reports them to a cop (Sam Lufkin), but words it such that the cop believes Oliver sexually harassed her. The cop confronts the hapless duo at the bottom of the stairs, and when they go down to talk with him, the piano rolls back down the steps and over Ollie. The cop then hits both of them as a lesson and departs.
The two doggedly persist in carrying the piano up the stairs for a third time. Halfway up, they encounter the short-tempered, pompous, and egotistical Professor Theodore von Schwartzenhoffen (Billy Gilbert), M.D., A.D., D.D.S., F.L.D., F-F-F, and F. He haughtily demands they move the piano out of his way for him to pass, but when the exhausted and frustrated Ollie suggests he walk around, the Professor flies in a rage and begins angrily pushing them and the piano. In retaliation, Stan knocks the Professor's top hat down the stairs and into the street, where it is crushed by a passing vehicle. The outraged professor leaves, loudly threatening to have the two arrested.
Finally, Stan and Ollie get the piano to the top, where Stan accidentally pushes Ollie into a fountain. As they ring the bell, the piano (soaked by the fountain) rolls back down to the street again; Ollie grabs a hold of it, and the piano drags him all the way down. That afternoon, they wearily get it back up the stairs and meet the postman by the house, only for him to reveal they did not have to lift the piano up the stairs; they could have taken it up a road that scales the hill and stopped in front of the house. In frustration, Stan and Ollie promptly carry the piano back down the stairs and scale the hill.
Finding no one home but eager to complete their job and leave, they decide to use a ladder and pulley to take the piano inside via the balcony then move it downstairs. As they get the piano to the balcony, Stan drops the pulley onto Ollie, knocking him and the ladder down and busting the door open. After a series of mishaps involving them mixing up each other's bowler hats, they begin moving the piano downstairs, only for Ollie to lose his footing and fall out a window with the piano into the fountain. Blaming Stan, he angrily throws his hat at them, and when Stan tries throwing it back, he falls into the fountain as well. They eventually take the piano through the open front door, but make shambles of the living room while unpacking it, as the wood falls everywhere and the water from the fountain leaks all over the carpet.
Once the piano is out, they begin cleaning up the mess while dancing to music coming from the piano. Meanwhile, the owner of the house (and the woman's husband) is revealed to be the Professor, who returns from talking with the same cop and is outraged at the mess. In a rage, he claims he detests pianos, making Stan and Ollie think they have the wrong address. They try to take the piano and leave, but still angered at the mess, the Professor instead takes an axe and proceeds to chop the piano to pieces (only briefly stopping when the piano plays "The Star-Spangled Banner"). His wife then comes home and tearfully reveals that the piano was a gift. This makes him regret his actions, even claiming he loves pianos. To apologize for his actions, the Professor agrees to sign the delivery receipt, but Stan gives him a pen that mis-functions and squirts ink into his face. The Professor again loses his temper as Stan and Ollie finally flee.
Cast
Stan Laurel as Stan
Oliver Hardy as Ollie
Uncredited cast
Billy Gilbert as Professor Theodore von Schwartzenhoffen, M.D., A.D., D.D.S., F.L.D., F.F.F.und F.
Hazel Howell as Mrs. von Schwartzenhoffen
Sam Lufkin as police officer
Lilyan Irene as nursemaid
Charlie Hall as postman
William Gillespie as piano salesman
Location
The steps, 133 with multiple landings, which are the focal point of The Music Box, still exist in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, near the Laurel and Hardy Park. The steps are a public staircase that connects Vendome Street (at the base of the hill) with Descanso Drive (at the top of the hill), and are located at 923-925 North Vendome Street near the intersection of Del Monte Drive. A plaque commemorating the film was set into one of the lower steps.
The steps can also be seen in the Charley Chase silent comedy Isn't Life Terrible? (1925), during a scene in which Chase is trying to sell fountain pens to Fay Wray. The steps are also used, for a gag similar to Hats Off and The Music Box, in Ice Cold Cocos (1926), a Billy Bevan comedy short directed by Del Lord. The steps are also referenced in The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair, a short story by Ray Bradbury, as the meeting place of the couple in the story, who call each other Ollie and Stan in homage to the comedic duo.
Although similar in appearance, the staircase is not the same one used by The Three Stooges in their 1941 film An Ache in Every Stake. Those stairs (147 steps in length) are approximately two miles northeast, located at 2212 Edendale Place in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles.
Reception
The short was popular with audiences in 1932 and generally well received by critics. After previewing The Music Box in late February that year, the New York trade paper The Film Daily assured theater owners that the comedy "is up to the Laurel-Hardy standard, and should score easily." Motion Picture Herald, after previewing the film in March, described it as "great fun" and noted, "Unusually long for a comedy [short], it is well worth the extra length." The Chicago-based movie magazine Motion Picture is even more enthusiastic about the comedy in its June 1932 issue:
Not all contemporary reviews, however, were positive. Variety, the entertainment industry's leading paper in 1932, did not publish its review of The Music Box until November 22, over seven months after MGM officially released the short to theaters. The reviewer, Alfred Greason, wrote:
Remakes
The film is a partial remake of their lost silent short Hats Off! (1927), directed by Hal Yates, which utilized a washing machine instead of a piano, and was filmed at the same location and is today considered a lost film. Hats Off was itself remade by Edgar Kennedy in 1945 as It's Your Move (again directed by Yates), but utilizing a different staircase although located in the same vicinity where the "Music Box Steps" are in Silver Lake (known as the Descanso Stairs, they are situated at the intersection of Descanso and Larissa drives, specifically between the residences of 3217 Descanso Drive and 3200-3206 Larissa Drive, and one block from Sunset Boulevard, which can be seen in the background in several long shots).
Hal Roach Studios colorized The Music Box in 1986 with a remastered stereo soundtrack featuring the Hal Roach Studios incidental stock music score conducted by Ronnie Hazelhurst. The film was later released on VHS along with a colorized version of Helpmates.
The Music Box was also dubbed in Spanish, with the lengthy title No cualquiera aguanta un piano, mucho menos una pianola (the English translation being "Not anyone can load a piano, less a pianola").
With some aspects of the original script omitted, actor Jorge Arvizu and other actors have produced additional Spanish versions of The Music Box, as well as other remakes of Laurel and Hardy shorts and features.
References
External links
The Music Box essay by Randy Skretvedt on the National Film Registry website
Music Box Steps in OpenStreetMap
The Music Box essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 195-196
1932 films
1932 comedy films
American black-and-white films
Films directed by James Parrott
Laurel and Hardy (film series)
Live Action Short Film Academy Award winners
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer short films
United States National Film Registry films
Films with screenplays by H. M. Walker
1930s English-language films
1930s American films