The Music Box ***** (1932, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy) – Classic Movie Review 1056

‘Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy decided to re-organize and re-supervise their entire financial structure. So they took their $3.80 and went into business.’

Directed by James Parrott, this 1932 film is Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s one and only Oscar-winning Best Short Subject comedy. It was the very first Academy Award for Live Action Short Film (Comedy). There is some fierce competition, but it is almost certainly their best, cleverest and most hilarious comedy short.

They start up in business as dithering delivery men for The Laurel & Hardy Moving Co, who soon find themselves facing a desperate challenge – how to lift a piano into a hillside home at the top of a monumentally long flight of stairs. The crate the duo wrestle with was empty, by the way, but the one seen sliding down the staircase really did have an upright piano in it. Several dummy pianos were made for the film, and a number of them were completely destroyed.

The Music Box is a joy. It is astonishingly inventive, ingenious, delightful and funny. Written by H M Walker, the film is basically a one-joke movie, but that one brilliant gag is endlessly and hilariously extended, with the brilliance of Laurel and Hardy at their peak as performers, much of it improvised by them.

It’s their film and their triumph, but they have the enormous benefit of exquisite comedy back-up from some great character actors playing a few excellent characters like the postman (Charlie Hall), the sassy nursemaid (Lilyan Irene), cop (Sam Lufkin), Piano Salesman (William Gillespie) and especially the house owners, Professor von Schwarzenhoffen M.D., A.D., D.D.S., F.L.D., F-F-F-and-F (Billy Gilbert) and Mrs von Schwarzenhoffen (Gladys Gale).

In the payoff, the irate Professor explodes in fury to discover the ‘mechanical blunderbuss’ in his home, not knowing it was a surprise birthday present from his wife.

Billy Gilbert (1894-1971) had exquisite comic timing and was the perfect foil for Laurel and Hardy. He was especially memorable as Herring in The Great Dictator (1940) and as the dim-witted process server Joe Pettibone in His Girl Friday (1940).

The Music Box is 30 minutes of sweet, pure, timeless comedy bliss.

The film is a partial remake of L&H’s silent short Hats Off (1927), filmed at the same location but now a lost film.

The monumental staircase with 131 steps in the film still exists, in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, near the Laurel and Hardy Park. They are a public staircase that connects Vendome Street (at the base of the hill) with Descanso Drive (at the top), and are located at 923-925 Vendome Street near the intersection of Del Monte Street.

The stairs led to a cul-de-sac and the mansion at the top is a set on the Hal Roach Studios lot. A plaque commemorating the film was set into one of the lower steps in the 1990s.

Hal Roach Studios colourised The Music Box in 1986 with a remastered stereo soundtrack featuring the Hal Roach Studios incidental stock music score conducted by Ronnie Hazelhurst.

In 1997, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically significant’. It’s good to know they’re picking the right movies.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1056

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