The Music Box

[Retro Ron]

Taken from the 1932 Laurel & Hardy short. Ollie has just tipped over a console radio and is about to put his foot into it. What details can we pick out about this set? Are the largish wires just part of the pyrotechnics that set off the exaggerated boom?

Regards,
Ron

[Scottb]

I guess I never thought about that. I love the their movies. Stan directed the movie Way Out West and I think it is one of the funniest. Also I should know the name, but the one where they try to put up a long wire antenna!!! I do have about 50 of the 133 movies they made on VHS, someday I plan to get them on DVD!!!
Scott

[Jim Berg]

I don't know about the wires, but the second tube from the left looks like a 99. Does it show the front of the radio?

[Doug Houston]

Whenever I saw that movie (I have it on VHS also), the scene happened so fast, it appeared to be a Majestic; possibly a 71 highboy. But the freeze-frame shown here kills that theory. I think it may show the front view of the set. I'll have to get it out and look. I'll burn it to a DVD, then freeze the frame.

I was talking about those movies a couple of days ago, and a friend called my attention to something. In "Them There Hills", the lady that comes along, and gets blitzed with L&H, is the same gal who is the wife of the angry guy in "Tit For Tat". It's the same couple there as in "Them There Hills".

NOW, recall in the hills, L&H were humming a tune ("There's An Old Spinning Wheel In The Parlor"), with "Bum, Bum", after the tune. They were plastered at this time. She was singing along with them, and Hubby came along about then, and all H--l broke loose.

Now, in "Tit For Tat", it's a sequel to "Hills". When L&H meet her in the window of their apartment, she sings"Bum, Bum". You have to look for it; it's so subtle. So, it appears tat the warfare in the electric shop was a continuation of the ruckus in the hills.

[Retro Ron]

Unfortunately there is no clear view of the front. I captured an additional three images from my TiVo that may help. It does resemble a Majestic of which I also have a picture but not sure the chassis pictured originally would be a match for that radio.

Regards,
Ron

[Retro Ron]

A picture of a similar-looking Majestic.

Regards,
Ron

[Jim Berg]

The cabinet looks like a Majestic 71, but the chassis does not. The 71 chassis has tubes in a row across the back, and no can on the back. It also has a large power pack cord and a knob on the chassis back. Also the chassis ID plate.

[Doug Houston]

No bout adoubt it, the set isn't a Majestic 71. The producer may have had a lot of props on hand at the time, and I guess we'll never know the identity of that set. Anyone who knows a Majestic 70 chassis would never mistake the one in the freeze frame for it. The rapidity of the action douses any clue of what the set was.

Inka-dentally, that residence and the stairway to it were real. I have been to LA a few times, and had I known it at the time, I'd have looked up the location.

One other of L&H's films was taken at the home of one of the studio execs. The boys were selling Christmas trees, and tore the place to shreds. They really did do all the damage that was filmed.

Even back in the era when the movie was made, I saw those films in theaters, and was horrified at the perverse waste of things like those radios that were things I wished for, but could not have. Today, the tale is different, but so much neat stuff was consumed in movies in their process.

In that era, I was also distressed at the sight of a car being demolished as part of the action. Now, as a vintage car collector, it still bothers me, but it was over and done with, decades ago. Put the tears on hold.

[Alan Douglas]

The first photo looks more like an amplifier than a radio. Perhaps it was a Majestic cabinet that had been cobbled into an audio amp, or the prop boys put an amp chassis into the Majestic, to provide more exposed tubes to step on.