The Music Box - Plot

Plot

In a music store, Mrs. Theodore von Schwartzenhoffen orders a player piano as a surprise birthday gift for her husband, Professor Theodore von Schwartzenhoffen, MD, AD, DDS, FLD, FFF&F. She tells the manager her address - 1127 Walnut Avenue - and he hires the Laurel and Hardy Transfer Company to deliver the piano in their freight wagon. After asking a postman for directions, and discovering the address is at the top of a very, very, very long stairway, the duo set about heaving the piano to the top.

Their attempts to carry the piano up the stairs result in it rolling and crashing into the street below several times, often with Ollie in tow. During their first attempt, they encounter a lady with a baby carriage trying to go down the steps; in trying to let her pass, they knock the piano back down the stairs. After the lady laughs at them, Stan kicks her in her backside, causing her to punch him back and hit Ollie over the head with a milk bottle. Stan and Ollie then heft the piano back up the stairs. The angry lady tells a policeman on the corner, who kicks Ollie twice and hits Stan with his truncheon after the latter suggests the officer is "bounding over his steps" (i.e. "overstepping his bounds"). Meanwhile, the piano has rolled down the steps again. Yet the two doggedly persist in carrying the piano up the stairs for a third time. Halfway up, they encounter the short-tempered and pompous Professor von Schwartzenhoffen, who in a fit of German rage screams at Stan and Ollie. Stan knocks the Professor's top hat down the stairs and into the street, where it is crushed by a passing lorry. The outraged professor goes off, threatening to have the two arrested.

Finally, Stan and Ollie get the piano to the top - after which it rolls back down to the street again. They wearily drag the piano back up the stairs, and meet the postman by the house, who informs them they didn't have to lift the piano up the stairs, but only had to drive up the hill and stop in front of the house. Stan and Ollie promptly carry the piano back down the stairs, put it back in their wagon and drive it up the hill to the house.

Finding no one home, they finally succeed in getting the piano in the house, making shambles of the living room while unpacking it. Meanwhile, the owner of 1127 Walnut Avenue - Professor von Schwartzenhoffen - returns and is outraged at what he finds, as he hates pianos. He attacks the piano with an axe, destroying it, but regrets his actions when Mrs. Von Schwartzenhoffen returns home and tearfully tells her husband it had been a surprise birthday present.