Laurel and Hardy in “The Music Box”

 

Today is the anniversary of the release date of Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box (1932), considered by many to be the greatest comedy of all time. It’s a movie about two idiotic working stiffs moving a piano up the longest outdoor staircase in the world.

Its virtues are primarily formal: it is delightfully well-constructed, in pacing and the organization and proliferation of gags. As always in the best Laurel and hardy comedies, it builds and builds. You constantly figure the concept has to be exhausted, but nope. They keep topping themselves. The beauty is how MUCH comedy they milk out of this simple premise, and how it builds and escalates, and continues to keep on giving all the way through. The repeated obstacles, setbacks, and heartbreaks all the way up the hill.

And then when they reach the top, the heartbreaks don’t stop. The customers aren’t home and the door is locked — but that doesn’t stop Laurel and Hardy. They succeed in destroying the house, the piano, and the hope of any future business.

Foil Billy Gilbert expresses his opinion of Laurel and Hardy’s piano delivery

Directed by James Parrott, this movie won an Oscar for best short in 1932 — one of the few times in history an American comedy masterpiece has gotten the kind of recognition it deserves.

For more on silent and slapstick comedy, including Laurel and Hardy masterpieces like “The Music Box” please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube