Written and filmed December, 1931. Released by MGM, April, 1932. Produced by Hal Roach. Directed by James Parrott. Three reels. Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Billy Gilbert, Lilyan Irene, Sam Lufkin, Charlie Hall, William Gillespie, Gladys Gale. STORY: Laurel and Hardy are to deliver a piano to a house which sits atop an enormous flight of stairs. Their attempts to carry the piano up the stairs results in it rolling and crashing into the street below several times, often with Ollie in tow. They finally succeed in getting the piano in the house, where they make a shambles of the living room. The owner of the house, Professor Theordore Von Schwarzenhoffen, returns and is outraged at what he finds. He attacks the piano with an axe, but regrets his actions when he discovers it was a present from his wife. |
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To the right: A historical quartet, the likes of which we will never see again: Stan Laurel, Walt Disney, Hal Roach and Babe Hardy, from the Hal Roach Studios' 20th Anniversary party, December 7th, 1933. Thanks to Randy Skretvedt, author of Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind The Movies, for clearing up which event this photo is from! |
The only Laurel and Hardy film to be honored with an Academy Award, for "Best Comedy Short Subject" 1931-32. It beat out Mack Sennett's The Loud Mouth starring Ray Cooke and Franklin Pangborne, and RKO's Scratch-as-Catch-Can which featured James Finlayson. Tit for Tat was the only other Laurel and Hardy film ever nominated for a Best Short Subject Award, in 1935. The Music Box was a quasi-remake of their lost silent film Hats Off, in which The Boys deliver a washing machine to the top of the very same steps. In 1941, The Three Stooges borrowed the premise and used a similar set of stairs to deliver ice in An Ache in Every Stake. |
JL:
As John B. and I have noted, this is the one Laurel & Hardy classic
that perhaps does not lend itself to repeated viewings as much as other
masterpieces such as Hog Wild, Helpmates and Towed in a Hole. This, however, does not diminish the stature of The Music Box,
for it is one of their grandest and funniest showcase vehicles, a
perfect encapsulation of all that is great about L&H's brand of
comedy. It is as timeless as the legend of Sisyphus, from which
this film (intentionally or not) derives.
Dialogue is at a minimum here. It is
instead a film composed of one classic visual image after
another. The steps, the piano, the falls in the pond, the block
and tackle clanging on Ollie's head...even the horse is afforded a few
priceless takes. Lending substance to the imagery are the
characters of Stan and Ollie themselves. They are perhaps more
dense here than usual (if such a thing is possible), but their sweet
and sincere nature renders their brainless actions endearing, rather
than exasperating.
The Music Box is
also a film in which sloppy editing is actually an asset. The
abrupt jump cuts, in which continuity was apparently of no concern,
enhance the comic pace and nonsensical mood. Although the focus
of the film is on the same repeated action (moving the piano up and
down the steps), it never stagnates or becomes tedious. The boys
may be stuck in place, but the film is always forward-moving.
Of all the classic Laurel & Hardy films, it is The Music Box
that is most often placed on a pedestal as a representative example of
Golden Age slapstick. It deserves such stature, even if the boys
made films that were more fun and more conducive to frequent
viewing. Because it is a less personal and more mass-appeal film,
few longtime fans will cite it as their favorite -- yet those same fans
will acknowledge they never made a better one. If you are new to
L&H, it is one of the first films you should see.
JB: The Music Box is similar to Big Business
in that the extremely minimalistic storyline gives it an appeal that
reaches outside the audience of Laurel and Hardy fans and captures the
imagination of just about anybody within twenty feet of it while it is
showing. There have been other L&H comedies just as
minimalistic in their approach: Busy Bodies, for one, or Me and My Pal. But The Music Box and Big Business
concern grand themes and human struggles, whereas those other films
concern the Boys playing with tools and being distracted by a puzzle.
The Music Box, on the other hand, is a
comic essay about an irresistable force (Stan and Ollie's determination
to move the piano) meeting an immovable object (the piano, which
actually moves, but never quite in the direction the Boys want it
to). Throw in the symbolism of man's endless struggle to ascend
to greater heights plus the legend of Sysyphus and his rock, and it's
no wonder wonky eggheads who otherwise wouldn't give two hoots about
Laurel and Hardy still recall The Music Box
fondly. It's also no wonder some fans (like us) feel the need to
point out that there are better Laurel and Hardy films out there.
With the amount of praise heaped upon at The Music Box
through the years and it being the only L&H film to win an Academy
Award, it can make some fans begin to cynically resent that this one is
up on the world's pedestal and not, say, Them Thar Hills or even a run-of-the-mill laugh riot like Going Bye-Bye!
The Music Box is a
rare three-reeler from the Boys. Normally, their shorts lasted
twenty minutes, long enough for them to milk a situation for all it was
worth but short enough that, with rare exceptions, they didn't run out
of funny things to do. It doesn't seem possible, however, that
any comedians, even Laurel and Hardy, could take this premise - moving
a piano up a flight of stairs and into a house - and play with it for a
full half hour without exhausting the comic possibilities. But
they do it. The key is once they get you hooked, they play out
the long flight of stairs just enough. One more trip up or down
those stairs and we would start looking at our watches. But the
stairs is only half the film. Once they get up to the house,
remarkably, it gets even funnier. The stairs is what everybody
recalls in awe and wonder and fondness, but my favorite parts happen in
and around the house. There are few more gut-bustingly funny
moments in their entire body of work than Ollie falling out the second
floor window into a pond, followed by the piano falling on top of
him. There's also more pure L&H by-play in the latter
half of the film, with the Boys mixing up their hats, getting confused
with doors, windows and each other, and making a wreck of the poor
Professor's living room inside of three minutes. There is a
hilarious moment where Ollie plugs in the player piano and gets a shock
from the electrical outlet (no doubt because they managed to flood the
room moments before.) What makes this one of the best moments in the
film for me is Ollie's reaction: a yelp of pain followed by him leaping
into the nearest chair and curling up in a protective fetal position,
waiting for even more punishment and pain to befall him.
Laurel and Hardy were so good at what they
did, it was inevitable that at least one of their films (if not more)
would eventually be recognized by their peers and given the big
prize. It turned out to be The Music Box. That award may
have inflated its reputation, but only slightly. With or without
the Oscar, The Music Box is still one of the greatest Laurel and Hardy comedies ever. It just isn't the greatest.
Copyright © 2012 John Larrabee, John V. Brennan