The twelve chairs

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Movie
German title The twelve chairs
Original title The twelve chairs
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1970
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Mel Brooks
script Mel Brooks
production Michael Hertzberg
music John Morris ; Mel Brooks
camera Djordje Nikolic
cut Alan Heim
occupation

The Twelve Chairs is a Mel Brooks comedy set in Russia in 1927. Mel Brooks' second film is based on the satirical novel Twelve Chairs by the two Soviet writers Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrow .

action

The film draws on the historical situation in Russia after the October Revolution , in which many aristocrats lost their belongings and had to vacate their houses. The last member of such a noble family tells her son-in-law Ippolit on his deathbed that jewelry with diamonds, emeralds and rubies is hidden in the dining room set. She sewed these items into one of the chairs during the revolution to save part of her fortune. The son-in-law senses a chance to secure his financial livelihood and goes in search of the twelve chairs.

Before that, however, the orthodox priest Fyodor was initiated into her secret by the dying woman. He got the same idea as Ippolit and went to look for the chairs. In his search, Ippolit meets the beggar and peddler Ostap Bender and the old servant Tikon, whom he also informs about the treasure. So several people go in search of this treasure.

The journey around the chairs takes both groups across Russia, because the chairs, which should actually be in a museum, are picked up when Ippolit and Ostap want to search them. After the two want to find out where the chairs have been delivered to the State Office for Furniture, they try to get rid of the greedy priest. They succeed in doing this with a trick: Ostap pretends to be an officer in the furniture department and tells the priest that the chairs had been transported to Siberia.

In fact, however, the chairs were distributed all over Russia, so each chair must be found and searched individually. However, the greedy are out of luck and none of the chairs found so far is the one they are looking for.

When there are only two chairs left, the priest returns from Siberia and realizes that he fell victim to a ruse and followed the wrong chairs. He is able to snatch the penultimate chair he has just found from his competitors and flee with it up a mountain. However, this is also not the chair you are looking for, so only the last chair can be the one you are looking for. Ippolit and Ostap discovered this in a newly established house for railway company workers .

When there is no treasure to be found in this chair either, they learn the shocking truth: The chair found there is the right one, but the jewelry had already been discovered by chance and the new house was financed with the proceeds from the jewelry sale.

Differences between film adaptation and novel

The film is very loosely based on the novel. For example, Ostap Bender begs in the film while he steals the money in the novel.

In addition, it is not shown that after Ostap learns about the treasure, he enters into a contract with Ippolit to secure some of the loot. The two opt for the 40:60 division ratio.

Another difference is that in the furniture office, the addresses of the chairs are assigned by a real official for a payment of 70 rubles. After receiving the addresses in his pocket and the receipt, Ostap tricked the officer. When the priest wants to get the addresses, 100 rubles are asked in advance.

In the film there are eleven chairs in the museum. Actually there are only ten chairs. A chair is with a widow who Ostap married as a marriage fraud in order to get to the chair. After the diamonds are not found in the chair, a spontaneous divorce occurs in the book. The widow does not appear in the film. According to the book, the ten remaining chairs cannot be found in the museum. These were sold at auction. They were auctioned off first together, then individually. All clients, with the exception of the theater, have been removed from the film.

The theater was not looking for an actor, as in the film, but a painter who fell ill. Bender accepted the job but was kicked off the ship for poor work.

The chess tournament in Wasjuki, where Bender stole money as "Chess Grandmaster Bender", was left out.

Characters like Sewitzki, who sells the chairs to the duo in the film, don't even appear in the novel. However, there is a similar figure in the novel, fitter Menshikov, who, like Sewitzki in the film, also works in the theater and later sells the chairs to the duo.

When Father Fyodor wanted to buy his chairs, he first went to Irkutsk and then to Yalta. There he buys the chairs for 230 rubles and not for 105 like in the film.

The begging scene was also very different. In the book, Bender was selling tickets for an exhibition location that was actually free. Vorobyaninov had to beg in the park in French (Monsieurs! Je n'ai mangé pas six jours (Gentlemen! I haven't eaten for six days)), German (Please give me a couple of Kopeeken for a piece of bread (original text from the book )) and Russian (Подайте что нибуть на пропитание бывшему депутату государственной думы (give something to live for a former member of the Duma, please )). In the film, Vorobyaninov portrayed a person suffering from epilepsy , while Bender told people about the alleged fate of Vorobyaninov in relation to Dostoevsky .

Another fact is that Ostap and Ippolit stay in Moscow in a room that a friend has given them.

The main difference between the book and the film, however, is that in the end Ostap Bender was killed by Vorobyaninov so that he would not have to share the treasure. He stays alive in the film.

Reviews

"Mel Brooks' version of the Russian satire, which has already been filmed several times, combines lustfully quoted Hollywood clichés from Mother Russia with Jewish puns and anarchist slapstick interludes."

- Lexicon of international film

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The twelve chairs. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used