The Music Box

• Stan Laurel: Stan
• Oliver Hardy: Ollie
• Billy Gilbert: Prof. Swabia Drescher
• Hazel Howell: Mrs. Swabia Drescher
• Sam Lufkin: policeman
• Lilyan Irene: nanny
• Charlie Hall: Postman
• William Gillespie: Piano seller

The Music Box is an American short film comedy from 1932 with Laurel and Hardy. He was the only film of the comedy duo an Academy Award for Best Short Film. In the German-speaking area of the film is also known under the titles The grueling piano transport and wire drawers.

Action

The transport company Laurel and Hardy 's mission is to deliver an electric piano. The address is a noble house to which leads up a very long, steep staircase. Stan and Ollie familiarize themselves with their heavy cargo with the utmost exertion on the way up, with them, the piano several times but slips and schliddert back down to the road. After they finally towed it to the top, they learn that they would have with their wagon on a different road to the house can drive. So they carry the piano back down the stairs and take the wagon out of the house. While nobody is at home, but that does not stop them from to heave the piano by block and tackle on a balcony. Meanwhile, returns the homeowner, the arrogant doctor Swabia Drescher ( in the original English: Professor Theodore of Black Hope ) back. He does not know that the piano is a surprise gift to his wife, and chopped it with an ax.

Background

Laurel and Hardy had in 1927 turned to the now lost silent film Hats Off a similar film. Here is a washing machine is also transported up with some effort a staircase. As preserved scene photos show, it is the Music Box stairs. The staircase with 131 steps still exists today, it is in the Silver Lake neighborhood in Los Angeles and connects the Vendome Street with the Descanso Drive. A plaque recalls there since the 1990s, the film shoot. The steps came in 1925 in the silent film comedy Is not Life Terrible? comes with Charley Chase before, in the Oliver Hardy played a supporting role, also in the slapstick silent comedy film directed by Billy Bevan Ice Cold Cocos ( 1926), in Germany known as The Iceman.

Opposite direction ( 2010)

Street sign

Synchronization

There are several dubbed versions of the film:

• The first synchronization in 1952 after dialogue book and dialogue, directed by Karl Heinz Briinnemann for the lay company IFU. The votes were: Walter Bluhm as Stan, Hermann Pfeiffer as Ollie and Wolf Ackva as a police officer.
• The second synchronization was created in 1960 following a dialogue book by Wolfgang Schick under the direction of Manfred Köhler at the company synchronous beta Technick in Munich. The votes were: Arno Paulsen Ollie, Walter Bluhm again as Stan, Gernot Duda as a police officer, Erich Ebert as a police officer and Werner Lieven as the professor.
• The third synchronization was created in 1967 following a dialogue book and dialogue director Werner Schwier at the synchronous Company Berliner Synchron Wenzel Luedecke. The votes were: Walter Bluhm for the third time as Stan, Arno Paulsen for the second time as Ollie and Werner Schwier as a professor and Toni Herbert as a police officer.

Awards

The Music Box was awarded in 1932 in the then-new category of Best Short Film - comedy with an Oscar. It is thus the only film of the comedy duo that has ever won an Oscar. In 1997, the short film was inducted into the National Film Registry.