The Music Box

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For other uses, see Music box (disambiguation).

The Music Box
Image:L&H Music Box 1932.jpg Lobby card to Music Box (1932)
Directed by	James Parrott
Produced by	Hal Roach
Written by	H.M. Walker
Starring	Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy Gladys Gale Billy Gilbert William Gillespie Charlie Hall Lilyan Irene Sam Lufkin
Music by	Harry Graham Marvin Hatley Leroy Shield
Cinematography	Len Powers Walter Lundin
Editing by	Richard C. Currier
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	April 16, 1932
Running time	30 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Music Box is a Laurel and Hardy film made in 1932. It was directed by James Parrott, produced by Hal Roach and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film won the very first Academy Award for Live Action Short Film (Comedy) in 1932. It has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Quotes
4 Location
5 Trivia
6 See Also
7 External Links

[edit] Plot

Stan and Oliver start a moving company. They must deliver a heavy player piano up a preposterously tall flight of stairs.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Quotes

(The Professor [Billy Gilbert] asks Stan and Ollie to move the piano out of the way so he can get through.)
Ollie: Why don't you walk around?
The Professor: What, walk around? Me, Professor Theodore von Schwarzenhoffen, M.D., A.D., D.D.S., F.L.D., F.F.F. and F., should walk around?!

Stan (to policeman): Don't you think you are bounding over your steps?
Policeman: Whadd'ya mean, "bounding over my steps?"
Ollie (trying to cover up for Stan): Oh, I think he means "overstepping your bounds"!

Ollie: (cheerfully) Why, we just delivered your piano.
The Professor: Piano? Piano?! I hate and detest pianos! They are mechanical blunderbusses! Take it out of here before I commit murder!

[edit] Location

The steps, which serviced as the location, are still in existence in Los Angeles, California. The "Music Box" steps are a public staircase, and do not lead to a single residence (as in the film), but instead connect Vendome Street (at the base of the hill) with Descanso Drive (at the top of the hill). They are located near the neighborhood where Sunset Boulevard and Silver Lake Boulevard intersect. The address is 923-935 Vendome Street near the intersection of Del Monte Street. A plaque was set into one of the lower steps between 1993 and 1995.

[edit] Trivia

This film is a remake of their 1928 silent short Hats Off, which is today considered a lost film

The opening title card says: "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy decided to reorganize and resupervise their entire financial structure -- so they took the $3.80 and went into business."

It is a three-reel (thirty minutes) short subject film.

The "Music Box" steps are not the ones later used in the Three Stooges 1941 short An Ache in Every Stake, in which the Stooges are hired to prepare a dinner (though they are both public staircases that at first glance appear similar). The "Ache in Every Stake" stairs are about two miles North of the "Music Box" steps, and are found between 2257 and 2258 Fair Oak View Terrace, and ascend 147 steps towards Edendale Place. One running gag in "An Ache in Every Stake" is to use tongs to carry a large cake of ice up the stairs. Of course, being a hot day in Los Angeles, the ice block is reduced to a cube by the time they get it up the 147 steps.

San Francisco is known for its hills, but Los Angeles has a few formidable hills of its own which have figured in comedy films. In addition to the two described above, the apparent "skyscraper" in the famous Harold Lloyd picture Safety Last! was filmed on a structure that was located on a steeply sloping street near the downtown, which made Lloyd's stunts look much more dangerous than they were.

A series of TV ads for a windshield wiper company featured actors who looked much like Laurel and Hardy. One of the ads referred to this film by portraying them trying to safely deliver a piano.