The Twelve Chairs

Knowing that Mel Brooks usually makes the silliest movies possible, it's a surprise that he directed the lightweight comedy "The Twelve Chairs". It portrays a former Czarist (Ron Moody, happy birthday!) and a young soldier (Frank Langella) looking for some jewels hidden in chairs in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. I will say that not much really happens throughout much of the movie, but it is a famous part of Russian literature. I haven't read the novel, but the movie is worth seeing, if only as a look at Brooks's early career. Also starring Dom DeLuise and Brooks in a small role.

Epilepsy...

It is the forgotten Brooks movie. Probably because it has the most controlled script story, and had the least wild, satyric inventiveness of any of his films.

After he wrote and directed the original THE PRODUCERS, Brooks did not do another film for a few years. The second one was this one set in the post-Russian Revolution period in the Soviet Union. Ron Moody (Fagin in the musical OLIVER) is a minor Tsarist nobleman who discovers, when attending his mother-in-law on her death bed, that she hid her fortune in jewelry in one of the dining room chairs. There were a set of twelve chairs, and they were appropriated by the government to be given to deserving members of the proletariat. Moody discovers that his mother-in-law did confess this to one person besides him: the local Russian Orthodox Priest (Dom DeLuise). Moody finds the latter a difficult opponent to beat to the fortune first. By chance he falls in with a young swindler (Frank Langella) and he and Langella pursue the chairs, and also send DeLuise on a wild goose chase following a second set of similar chairs.

What we get is a view of the Soviet Union in 1928, as the Civil Wars died out and the regime consolidated power. Trotsky's name is now dismissed (as a street shows). The stage is dominated by the state oriented drama that is anti-capitalist. Witness the performance of Andreas Voutsinas - the original "Carmen Ghia" in the first PRODUCERS, as the government backed manager of the theater group that Moody and Langella join. There is a life and death threat behind comments he gives to one of the stage crew he controls. We also see how the common people try to cope with the changes - being sent across country on government sponsored jobs - to houses that the government may furnish.

Brooks has his first role in his own films in this one - as Tikhon, the drunken, ex-servant of Moody. He receives a slap from the latter, and considers it exactly like a hug.

Like IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD, THE TWELVE CHAIRS looks at the antics people will go through for hidden wealth. Langella, who is a street criminal anyway, is the only sane member of the three treasure seekers. He is a realist (the first really serious one in Brooks' films), and has adapted to the new conditions fairly easily by living on his considerably keen wits. He realizes that he is hampered as well as helped by his alliance with Moody, but manages to figure out how to live with Moody as best as possible. Moody has become a bureaucrat to survive in the new regime (he's suspect as an aristocrat), but he still has his pretenses. It takes the events he shares with Langella for him to finally give up his pretenses. Together both men find out what is really worthwhile about living. DeLuise is less lucky. He just discovers the perils of being a loner.

A long time ago, Mel Brooks had a subtle side.

Hard to believe, isn't it? The man responsible for such guffaw-fests as "Blazing Saddles", "Silent Movie", "High Anxiety" and such.... SUBTLE?

In "The Twelve Chairs", he does get laughs out of the story of a Russian nobleman searching for jewels sewn into one of twelve of his family's chairs that have been sold with the rest of his family's possessions. But not the way we're use to seeing Mel earn them.

This, time, he gets them through character study, human nature, individuals' reactions to certain embarrassing situations and, of course, good old-fashioned greed. And the laughs are there, to be sure.

I'm actually surprised that I liked this as much as I did. I'm used to Mel up there with the lampshade on his head, yucking it up with wild abandon. This film, subtle as it is, makes me laugh.

Of course, for purists, there's always good old DeLuise as another conniver searching for the same jewels. He makes with the wildness and insanity that makes a Mel Brooks film a Mel Brooks film, and he's a joy to see.

The others, Moody and Langella in particular, play regular human beings who see a situation, assess it and act as (nearly) anyone else would. More humorously, of course.

Seek out "The Twelve Chairs". Rare as it is, a rose by any other name....

And you know the rest.

Eight stars. Hey! Hey, hey, hey!

Probably Mel Brooks' most unfamiliar film as well as his most overtly Jewish is this adaptation shot in Yugoslavia of the frequently filmed Russian satirical novel by Ilf & Petrov, versions of which had previously been made as far afield as Hollywood and Cuba.

As with 'The Producers' the lead role went to a prominent Jewish stage actor, on this occasion Ron Moody. The fatalistic tone already set by John Morris' title song, the tone throughout is low-keyed for Brooks with a downbeat ending reminiscent of (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) the final scene of Bialystok & Bloom rehearsing 'Prisoners of Love' in 'The Producers'.

THE TWELVE CHAIRS is a different kind of Mel Brooks comedy. Its story, from a Russian novel by Ilf and Petrov, will seem very tasteful and human to those who are acquainted with Brooks' usual raunchiness. This movie is a nice change. Ron Moody and Frank Langella star, with Dom DeLuise and a special appearance by Mel Brooks as Tikon.