The Music Box

The Music Box

Two comedic actors, Englishman Stanley Laurel and American Oliver Hardy, teamed up in mid-life after successful early careers in the film industry. Having pleasant voices and a style of acting that adapted well to the sound stage, Laurel and Hardy made easy transitions from the silent films to the talkies.

Born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in Ulverston, Lancashire, England, Stan played the blundering sidekick to Ollie, the vexed taskmaster. Using slapstick comedy they became famous for running a joke beyond all expectations. This technique was used to perfection in The Music Box.

In this twenty-nine minute length film released in 1932, these partners in the transfer business discover they must lug a player piano up several flights of outdoor, concrete stairs. The task begins with their horse, Susie, playing a practical joke on Ollie.

Naturally, a flight of stairs this long will attract pedestrians who cannot or will not maneuver around a piano and two men.

The piano goes up. The piano goes down. The piano goes farther up. The piano goes down. The piano goes up still farther. The piano goes down, etc. etc. Sometimes the piano goes down with the help of Stan and Ollie. Sometimes it goes down on its own.

After annoying two pedestrians and attracting the attention of the police they finally deliver the piano to the top landing. Unfortunately, no one is home. They take the piano into the house by hoisting it up to the second floor balcony. After several mishaps involving a ladder, a large fountain of water and a plummeting pulley they manage to get the piano inside the house.

Turning the house into shambles Stan and Ollie set up the piano and turn it on. The owner of the house arrives to find them dancing to the music. Unaware that his wife had bought the piano as a surprise birthday gift for him, he argues with them until the national anthem begins to play. Stan commits one last faux pas before this wacky movie ends.

In County Hospital, a nineteen-minute length film from 1932, we observe a gesture frequently used in Laurel and Hardy movies. Ollie breaks the fourth wall and looks into the camera whenever he becomes surprised or annoyed with Stan’s inept behavior.

Stan arrives at the hospital for a visit with Ollie whose broken leg is hanging in mid-air by a cord suspended from the ceiling. Ollie is disappointed in the hard-boiled eggs and nuts that Stan brought as a present. Unperturbed, Stan sits down to eat the snack. Searching for a tool to crack the nuts, Stan lifts the counter weight to Ollie’s leg, and the leg drops onto the doctor’s head.

The doctor rushes across the room to confront Stan, and the slipup that follows results in Ollie being ordered to leave the hospital. While attempting to help Ollie dress, Stan manages to rile the displeasure of the roommate before sitting on a hypodermic needle filled with a sedative.

Of course, Ollie is not able to drive the car and Stan takes the wheel. Dozing off he nearly misses running into cars, trucks and trolleys. This scene uses a rear projection technique modern viewers will find unconvincing. However, the zany finish is worth the wait.

A well-known phrase attributed to Hardy is, 'Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into' spoken to Stan in another movie, Another Fine Mess. We see an example of one mess after another in Busy Bodies, a nineteen-minute length movie from 1933.

This film begins on a pleasant note with the duo merrily driving down the palm-tree lined lane on their way to work. They are listening to music from an ingenious contraption and enjoying the beautiful morning.

At the lumberyard their peaceful interlude is disrupted when one snafu after another happens with increasing destruction to the carpenter shop and a nearby work shed. Ollie has a habit of attributing the gaffes to Stan even though he is just as likely to cause them. Stan takes Ollie’s reprimands in stride most of the time.

Stan uses the various carpenter tools carelessly or inappropriately. The simple act of hammering a nail into the wall has unpredictable consequences. While smoothing the surface of a piece of lumber, Stan’s plane goes where he hasn’t intended for it to go.

Stan’s idea for correcting the situation causes further complications when Ollie reacts unfavorably to his blunder. In the last scene we see a miscue that results in an outlandish outcome and leaves the workmates mystified.

The Music Box won an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Comedy. Other popular, longer-length movies starring Laurel and Hardy are Sons of the Desert, Way Out West, and Block-Heads. Big Business, a nineteen-minute Christmas production, features the duo playing door-to-door Christmas-tree salesmen.

Laurel and Hardy’s films remain hilariously funny after eighty years. Maybe that is because no matter what precipitates their cockamamie predicament, they retain the childlike quality of accepting the situation as it is, picking themselves up and going about their business as best they can until the next silly blunder occurs.


by for www.femalefirst.co.uk
find me on