Comedy duo Laurel and Hardy have gotten themselves into another fine mess in this slapstick masterpiece!
(Originally posted on Channel Awesome on February 24, 2014) Comedy duo Laurel and Hardy have gotten themselves into another fine mess in this slapstick masterpiece! Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy each had a long theater and film resume before their first team-up in 1927. Stan Laurel (1890 - 1965), born in Cumbria, England, got his start performing in British music halls - in the same theater troupe as Charlie Chaplin, who Laurel sometimes understudied for. Laurel relocated to the United States at the same time (and on the same boat) as Chaplin, and Laurel eventually transitioned from stage to screen. Oliver Hardy (1892 - 1957) was born in Harlem, Georgia, and developed an interest in theater as a kid (at one point, he ran away from home to join a singing troupe). In 1910, Hardy was working as a projectionist and fell in love with the up-and-coming medium of film. He relocated to Jacksonville, Florida (a popular location for shooting movies) in 1913, and made his film debut a year later. By the time they officially became a comedy team, Laurel had appeared in 50 movies, and Hardy had been in five times as many. In 1926, Laurel and Hardy signed with Hal Roach Studios, and were paired off as a duo for the first time in a short comedy, Putting Pants of Philip (1927). They went on to make over 100 movies together, silent movies as well as talkies, ranging from short films to full-length features. The Music Box is one of their shorts, clocking in at just under half an hour (so this isn't going to be all that long of a review, as a result). It's actually a sound remake of one of their silent comedies from 1927, Hats Off. (No prints of this movie are known to exist as of the time I'm writing this, so I haven't seen it). Hats Off (1927) Given its length and how the film basically consists of milking a funny premise for all it's worth (successfully, I might add), I won't go into too much detail about the plot summary. A woman buys a piano as a surprise birthday present for her husband, and hires the Laurel and Hardy Transfer Company to deliver it. Said delivery involves carrying it up a very long flight of steps - often multiple times, given how often the piano falls all the way to the bottom for a variety of hilarious reasons. They eventually arrive at their destination, but nobody's home. Further hijinks ensue when they try and get the piano into the house through the window, making a huge mess in the process. This is pure live-action slapstick at its finest. I've lost track of how many times I've seen The Music Box, and the comedy (much of it improvised) never gets old because of how well everything fits together. The comic timing, the inventiveness of the gags, the squeezing of every possible gag out of this scenario - all these elements succeed. And then, of course, there's the performances of our leads - Hardy as the hapless, blustering fall guy, and Laurel as the meek, often oblivious cuckoolander. They know how to overplay their reactions so that you're never too busy feeling sorry for them to laugh at their pratfalls, even when Hardy's giving the audience one of his trademark "Why me?" expressions. The Music Box was the first short film to ever win an Academy Award, the only such award the Laurel and Hardy films would win. It remains one of their most iconic movies (one of three to get its own page on TV Tropes), and it's been released on home media a number of times - so if I've gotten you at all interested in seeing this, it shouldn't be too hard to find somehow. The steps where The Music Box was filmed still exist, and if you're ever in Los Angeles, you can check them out for yourself near Laurel and Hardy Park (the house, however, was built on a sound stage). I'd have loved to go on a lot more about the brilliance of the comedy in this film, but mere words can't do it justice. You have to see it for yourself, and it's well worth your time to do so.
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