The Music Box (1932)

The Music Box Review

The Music Box is a 1932 short comedy film directed by James Parrott and starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. It’s a classic comedy flick.

Deliverymen Laurel and Hardy struggle to push a large crated piano up a seemingly insurmountable flight of stairs. This is my first time seeing a Laurel and Hardy movie and I am excited to see more as they are fantastic. Laurel is the dumber of the two while Hardy is the more easily irritated one. Both are quite stupid, but it is Hardy who is usually the butt of the jokes and it’s very funny watching him repeatedly fall or get struck by objects.

This movie sees them constantly fail to bring this huge piano box down these now iconic stairs in Los Angeles. The setting was brilliant for this comedic conceit and the movie looks and sounds splendid due to stark cinematography and a great use of quirky, over-the-top sound effects. The highlight was the scene where they realized that they could have taken the road to bring the box and not climb the stairs, so they climb down these huge stairs only to bring the box by road again. This moment was hilariously idiotic and undoubtedly the best part of the film.

The Music Box is definitely overlong for such a simple premise. That resulted in a first half that was at times repetitious in the number of times that they had to go up and down these stairs, but the second half livened things up significantly with the scenes in the house being brilliantly constructed and so much fun. That German man was hilariously neurotic and his lines of dialogue were priceless.

The Music Box is a terrific comedy short that benefits from a great comedic timing and fantastic dynamic between Laurel and Hardy as well as a superb premise well exploited for laughs.

My Rating – 4.4