Laurel and Hardy - The Music Box

932-935 Vendome Street, Los Angeles

One of my favorite Laurel & Hardy comedy shorts is The Music Box, in which the boys are hired to deliver a piano to a house located at the top of a long flight of stairs. The boys struggle to push the piano up the stairs, becoming trampled by the piano in the process. Not until they reach the top do they realize there was a driveway that lead to the top! The film won an Academy Award for best short comedy subject at the 1931-1932 awards.

932-935 Vendome Street "Music Box" Stairs

The stairs that were used in The Music Box are still standing, located between 932-935 Vendome Street, just south of Sunset Boulevard in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Above is a picture of how the stairs look today. Not only were the stairs used in The Music Box but they are featured in an earlier Laurel & Hardy film from 1927, Hats Off. In this film the boys were delivering vacuum cleaners.

Plaque located at base of The Music Box stairs.

At the base of the stairs you will find a plaque ackowledging the significance of these steps. The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board has made this location a cultural landmark. Not only is their plague but there is now also a street sign for this particular location.

Here is a wonderful video that shows The Music Box stairs as they appear today and also, if you watch through to the end, you will see clips from the short itself. The video does a good job of showing the steps from different angles and comparing to footage from the film.

Buster Keaton Studios

Metro / Buster Keaton Studios, Hollywood, CA

Of the top three silent comedians this is what comes to mind: when I think of Chaplin I think "finesse." When I think of Lloyd I think "Sporty." When I think of Buster Keaton I think "daring." Keaton devised some of the most elaborate and dangerous stunts of any of the silent film actors. Not only did he do all of his own stunts he often played the role of stunt double for his fellow supporting actors. Many times Keaton would injure himself but that rarely kept him from continuing his work and I believe this, along with his well developed gags, made him one of the greatest.

Many of Keaton's most memorable films including Steamboat Bill, Our Hospitality, and The General to name a few, were made at the Buster Keaton Studio in Hollywood, CA. The main entrance to the studio was located at 1325 Eleanor Ave but the structures of this studio are long gone. In the vintage photo at the top you can see part of the Keaton Studios which eventually became the Metro studios. In the two photos below you can see the studio site as it appears today.

Note* There used to be a Buster Keaton statue that stood at this location but it has been removed. If you go to where the Eleanor street sign is and look at the ground you can see a plaque where the statue used to stand. I need to go back with a towel and clean it off though in order for a photo of it to show up.

Eleanor Ave & Lillian Way, Hollywood

Site of the former Buster Keaton Studio

Steve McQueen Coming Back to the Big Screen in Pairs

Why does it seem that so many movie projects come in pairs? Armageddon vs. Deep Impact, Capote vs. Infamous, recently Paul Blart: Mall Cop vs. Observe and Report and I could go on. Now there is two biographical pics in the works on the legendary actor, the "King of Cool," Steve McQueen!

Producer and former McQueen publicist David Foster is working on a film based on the memoir written by Neile McQueen Toffel, McQueens first wife, titled "My Husband, My Friend." The second project has Jesse Wigutow set to write a screenplay based on Marshall Terrill's biography "Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel." No stars have been named for the projects.

One question for you guys and girls:

Who do you think should play the role of Steve McQueen?