The Twelve Chairs (1970 film)

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The Twelve Chairs
Video cover for The Twelve Chairs
Directed by	Mel Brooks
Produced by	Michael Hertzberg
Written by	Ilf and Petrov (novel), Mel Brooks
Starring	Frank Langella, Dom DeLuise, Ron Moody
Distributed by	Universal Marion Corporation
Release date(s)	1970
Running time	94 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Twelve Chairs is a 1970 slapstick comedy film directed by Mel Brooks, starring Frank Langella, Dom DeLuise and Ron Moody . The screenplay was written by Brooks. The film is loosely based on a novel, The Twelve Chairs (Двенадцать Стульев) (1928) written by Ilf and Petrov.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

At the start, Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov, a buffoon from an erstwhile noble family in Czarist Russia, is summoned, along with the family priest, to the deathbed of a relative who reveals, before passing, that a set of jewels had been hidden from the Bolsheviks by being sewn into the seat cushion of one of the twelve chairs from the family's dining room set. After hearing the dying confession, the orthodox priest there to give last rites, played by Dom DeLuise, decides to leave the church and attempt to beat the scion to the treasure.

Shortly thereafter, a vagabond con-artist, Ostap Bender, meets the dispossessed nobleman and forces his way into a partnership with him in his search for the family riches. Although Ostap is an unwelcome addition at first, it is mostly through his cunning, intellect and charm that the pair manages to get anywhere while keeping ahead of or thwarting the fallen priest who is now their competition.

The chairs, along with all other personal property, had been expropriated by the government after the Russian Revolution. The two set off together to locate the chairs and recover the fortune, but are stymied by a series of false leads and other trying events.

Early on, they find that the chairs have been split up and sold individually and so their hunt ends up requiring lots of travel to track down and open up each piece of the set in order to eliminate it as a possible location of the booty. As they progress, they meet comrades from every walk of life in Soviet Russia as they follow the motley destinations fate had arranged for each chair. Much of the humor in the movie is the result of the two getting into, and then extricating themselves from, outrageous situations in their mission to covertly locate, open up (read utterly destroy), and thus rule out each chair, in turn.

Eventually, but only after perpetrating plenty of cons to pay for the lengthy enterprise, the duo discovers the last, 12th chair, that must - through process of elimination - contain the treasure. It is located in a public recreation center, tantalizingly accessible, but also, frustratingly inconvenient due to the presence of so many witnesses. The two hide in the building until after closing so they can open up the last chair in peace, after everyone has gone.

At the moment of discovery, as they demolish the chair with great zeal due to all the pent up anticipation and lust that has built up within them, their hopes are dashed as it is found to be, like all eleven before them, completely empty.

An officer is drawn in by the commotion the duo had unthinkingly perpetrated in their exuberance. When he comes upon the protagonists, he stands there astonished at the sight of the two men sitting despondently within the ruins of a chair. Quickly asking them what they are doing, the two, sitting there exhausted and bemused by the vicissitudes of their abortive adventure, readily admit in sorrowful tones why they had perpetrated the demolition they sat within. Perhaps in a state of semi-shock because of the absurdity of the events described and inferred, the officer explains to the pair how the jewels had been unexpectedly found one day, and further, how it was decided that the grand building that they were now sitting in the center of, would be built with the fortuitous fortune realized by the sale of the discovered gems.

Hearing this "inspiring" story, where the spirit of communism works for the common good - and once again at his family's personal expense - sends Vorobyaninov over the edge. Driven into a sudden rage, he assaults the officer, knocking him out. After sternly admonishing him for hitting a policeman, Ostap leads the way as the two make a hurried escape into the night.

Now at the end of his patience, feeling demoralized, and bankrupted in every sense of the word, Ostap proposes that he and Vorobyaninov split-up and go their separate ways. This produces an immediate and palpable tension because the two had been so long together. Even though they could not have had more different backgrounds, and even as they regularly antagonized one another, they also had bonded to one another, each in his own fashion. However, Ostap is unable to see how a con man could possibly survive long with a spoiled former nobleman and so after forcefully saying his peace, he begins to walk off.

Capriciously, in a last ditch effort to keep Ostap from leaving, Vorobyaninov collapses to the ground, feigning an epileptic seizure as an unspoken invitation for Ostap, the inveterate swindler, to work the crowd. This is a pivotal because previously, as they were trying to decide what to do, now that their mission had come to utter failure, and serving as a large part of what had convinced Ostap that the two should part ways, the former noble had impetuously and derisively proclaimed to Ostap that "a Vorobyaninov never begs!"

Ostap, who had not yet noticed the action of his comrade, as he was about to place a serious distance between himeself and his nettlesome comrade, is compelled to pause as he hears the people around suddenly gasp and huddle around a "stricken" man who has tumbled to the ground among them. Turning to see the cause of the commotion, and after what feels like a long pause even though it is only an moment, Ostap stands, watching the spastic flailing of his longtime parnter/nemesis, and he silently considers the scene before him as the crowd murmurs and mulls about, seemingly unsure what to do.

Finally, with a wan grin that only someone who knew the irony would see, he loudly calls out for the attention of those around, asking for all the passers-by to gather around. Ostap lapses with ease into a spontaneous but smooth appeal to all to give generously to this sad man who had been stricken down with, "the same malady of the great author, Dostoyevsky." He works the crowd by silent agreeement and with professional skill.

The camera begins to pull back and shows more people being pulled in by the ruse. As the shot continues to pull out and as the music wells up in the background, the movie ends as the two, using impromptu gestures, and without a word between them, cement their partnership and avert their parting - at least for the day, which, along with each other, is all they now have.

[edit] Awards

Frank Langella won the NBR (National Board of Review) award for Best Supporting Actor. Mel Brooks was nominated for the WGA (Writers Guild of America) for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium.