Coordinates: 40°45′31.34″N 73°59′13.62″W / 40.7587056°N 73.9871167°W
The Music Box Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 239 West 45th Street (George Abbott Way) in Midtown Manhattan.
The once most aptly named theatre on Broadway, the intimate Music Box was designed by architect C. Howard Crane and constructed by composer Irving Berlin and producer Sam H. Harris specifically to house Berlin's famed Music Box Revues. It opened in 1921 and hosted a new musical production every year until 1925, when it presented its first play, Cradle Snatchers, starring Humphrey Bogart. The following year, Chicago, the Maurine Dallas Watkins play that served as the basis for the hit musical, opened here. It housed a string of hits for the playwriting team of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, from their first collaboration Once in a Lifetime to their hit play The Man Who Came to Dinner. Cole Porter and George and Ira Gershwin also presented shows here.
In the 1950s, playwright William Inge found a home at the Music Box, where he had success with Picnic, Bus Stop, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.
The Fonda Theatre (formerly Music Box Theatre, Guild Theatre, Fox Theatre, and Pix Theatre) is a concert venue located on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival Style, the 31,000-square-foot (2,900 m2) theater has hosted live events, films, and radio broadcasts.
On October 18, 1926, the Carter DeHaven Music Box opened with a revue called Fancy. Among the first investors in the new theater were John Barrymore, John Gilbert, Reginald Denny, King Vidor, and Mae Murray.
The Music Box switched from revues to legitimate theater in 1927 with the west coast première of Chicago, starring Clark Gable and Nancy Carroll. Stage plays continued at the Music Box for nearly two decades—aside from a period beginning in 1936 when the site was used as a broadcasting studio by Lux Radio Theater.
In 1945, Fox West Coast purchased the building and remodeled it for film exhibition in a Streamline Moderne decor, which included covering the Spanish Colonial Revival façade with sheet metal. Opening in February 1945, the theater showed movies for 32 years; first as the Guild Theatre, then as the Fox Theatre, and finally as the Pix Theatre, before closing its doors in 1977.
The Music Box Theatre at 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, Illinois, opened on August 22, 1929, a time when the movie palaces in downtown Chicago each had seating capacities of around 3,000 people. The Music Box, which sat 800, was considered an elaborate little brother to those theatres. Theatre Architecture magazine noted in 1929 that the theatre "represents the smaller, though charming and well equipped, sound picture theatre which is rapidly taking the place of the 'deluxe' palace." The opening film was Mother’s Boy starring Morton Downey (father of talk show host Morton Downey, Jr.), Beryl Mercer and a young Brian Donlevy (in his 5th film)
The theatre was built for a cost of $110,000. The entire building, which also included nine storefronts and 32 apartments, cost $260,000. Louis A. Simon, a local architect, who was better known for his Depression era WPA Post Offices and homes for the nouveau riche, designed the building. The building was erected by The Southport Avenue Businessmen’s Association and operated by Lasker and Sons, who operated several smaller neighborhood houses in Chicago.
A music box or musical box is an automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to pluck the tuned teeth (or lamellae) of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and called carillons à musique. Some of the more complex boxes also have a tiny drum and/or small bells, in addition to the metal comb.
The original snuff boxes were tiny containers which could fit into a gentleman's waistcoat pocket. The music boxes could have any size from that of a hat box to a large piece of furniture, but most were tabletop specimens. They were usually powered by clockwork and originally produced by artisan watchmakers. For most of the 19th century, the bulk of music box production was concentrated in Switzerland, building upon a strong watchmaking tradition. The first music box factory was opened there in 1815 by Jérémie Recordon and Samuel Junod. There were also a few manufacturers in Bohemia and Germany. By the end of the 19th century, some of the European makers had opened factories in the United States.
A music box (also musical box) is a 19th-century automatic musical instrument.
Music box or musical box may also refer to:
Music Box is a 1989 film that tells the story of a Hungarian-American immigrant who is accused of having been a war criminal. The plot revolves around his daughter, an attorney, who defends him, and her struggle to uncover the truth.
The movie was written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by Costa-Gavras. It stars Jessica Lange, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Frederic Forrest, Donald Moffat and Lukas Haas.
It is loosely based on the real life case of John Demjanjuk and, as well, on Joe Eszterhas' own life. Eszterhas learned at age 45 that his father, Count István Esterházy, had concealed his wartime involvement in Hungary's Fascist and militantly racist Arrow Cross Party. According to Eszterhas, his father, "organized book burnings and had cranked out the vilest anti-Semitic propaganda imaginable."p.201 After this discovery, Eszterhas severed all contact with his father, never reconciling before István's death.
Chicago defense attorney Anne Talbot learns that her father, Hungarian immigrant Michael J. Laszlo, is in danger of having his U.S. citizenship revoked. The reasons are that he stands accused of war crimes. He insists that it is a case of mistaken identity. Against the advice of her former father-in-law, corporate attorney Harry Talbot, Anne resolves to defend her father in court. One of her reasons is how deeply her son, Mikey, loves and admires his grandfather.
This is my music box
And this is my home
Come in take a look if you like
Just you on your own
But don't make your mind up
Cos it's not done yet
Yeah this is my music box
In a state of regret
Cos you drag me down
Yeah you drag me down
But I've had a plague of late
A niggle of doubt
Yeah I've had questions of conscience
Of what this is about
Can anyone hear me these days
Have I lost my tongue
Did I lose the battle sweet stuff
Before I'd begun
Cos I am a private man
Or am I a whore
We'll settle the bill first then
Well we'll settle the score
Yeah this is my music box
My pride and my joy
Come in take a seat look around
Say hi to the boys
Yeah this is my music box
And this is my home
Yeah this is my sanctuary
Now leave me alone
Cos you drag me down
Yeah you drag me down