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Those Silver Lake stairs, made famous in the Laurel & Hardy short THE MUSIC BOX are so iconic, I've always wondered why one of todays wunderkind directors, so often given to homage, have not used the steps in a modern picture.

Have the stairs appeared in any film since THE MUSIC BOX? (no - the Stooges' AN ACHE IN EVERY STAKE was not shot on the Vendome steps in Silver Lake)

Those Silver Lake stairs, made famous in the Laurel & Hardy short THE MUSIC BOX are so iconic, I've always wondered why one of todays wunderkind directors, so often given to homage, have not used the steps in a modern picture.

Have the stairs appeared in any film since THE MUSIC BOX? (no - the Stooges' AN ACHE IN EVERY STAKE was not shot on the Vendome steps in Silver Lake)

Now that you mention it, I don't recall seeing any other scenes from later movies filmed on those steps. The neighborhood has changed quite a bit since The Boys filmed there; there are apartment buildings on both sides of the stairs and Vendome Street is very narrow. Location film trucks and equipment would completely block the street.

I've never seen those stairs in any other films, but there's a loving and hilarious tribute to The Music Box in the 2002 comedy BARBERSHOP with Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer. Different steps, though.

Like many of my generation, I first came to know and love (and be sent rolling on the floor by) Laurel & Hardy via TV showings in the 1950s. The Music Box held a special fascination because our house was also located on an almost identical long concrete stairway (and an offical city street) in Larkspur, California. Never saw a piano (or washing machine) on it, though.

In the 30's the stairs were in good repair and the neighborhood was open and photogenic. Now they look worn out and the surroundings are built up and overgrown. It would be tricky to shoot there and get the same effect.

Looks pretty photogenic to me.

Then they've been improved- good.

They were used in an Edgar Kennedy short in the early 1940s. "Duck Soup" comes to mind, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Bob

They were used in an Edgar Kennedy short in the early 1940s. "Duck Soup" comes to mind, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Bob

The Edgar Kennedy short you're thinking of is probably IT'S YOUR MOVE (1945) in which Edgar and his brother-in-law (Jack Rice) have to deliver a washing machine up a long flight of stairs.

Looks pretty photogenic to me.

Oooh! What film is this? I'm not sure I've ever seen Sgt. Garcia out of uniform before.

(Ha! Ha! I joke, I kid, I tease...)

Not sure which one of us should be more insulted!

BTW, the late Ray Bradbury wrote a short story called "Another Fine Mess" that centers around those stairs, the piano and the spiritsof Stan & Ollie. It appears in the anthology "Quicker Than the Eye," published by Avon Books in 1996. SETH