The Twelve Chairs

Mel Brooks' career has an interesting arc. At the beginning, there's two films unlike almost anything else he'd do. At the end, two notable flops. And in the middle, his sicko period, unbridled success being a master satirist. Of the films outside his sicko period, the two flops are discussed for being exactly that, and how they end Brooks' directorial career on a whimper, and how they closed out his career with a whimper. His first film, The Producers, is revered to the point of having a Broadway musical version, and a movie version of that Broadway musical. That leaves one movie, The Twelve Chairs, as the outlier. It is an adaptation of a 1928 Russian novel, about a man looking for furniture he once owned prior to the Communist revolution, in which he has been told there are previous gems and jewelry he can use to buy his way out of poverty. It is a tragicomedy, as misfortune rides along with him and his conman co-conspirator at every step. The biggest problem with The Twelve Chairs is its origin. The Producers and Life Stinks were stories Mel Brooks wrote, so the story and the humor are all infused with his signature style (whether it works for you in Life Stinks is another story). The wit, the slapstick, every aspect of Mel Brooks' style of humor is allowed to shine through in The Producers. The Twelve Chairs, by being a fairly faithful adaptation of a novel, and a tragicomedy at that, is constrained on all sides. There is little room for his signature style. What traces there are of it often feel wedged in amid the pathos and irony. It's not to say this isn't amusing at times, but any sense of amusement rarely feels like it comes from Brooks' contributions to the material and more from the nature of the story itself. Another thing dragging down the movie is the performance of Frank Langella. Normally a great actor, here, he seems to think he can stroll through the movie on smarm. Everybody else throws themselves into the story as much as the story allows, like Dom DeLuise' larcenous clergyman, but Langella feels like he's in a different movie. The result of these critical flaws is a movie that shows why it has been largely omitted from discussion of Mel Brooks' filmography. It isn't bad, but it is forgettable. Brooks' passion and interest for the material is up on the screen, and I commend him on wanting to go out on a limb after the more directly comedic The Producers. But sometimes, being an artist also means recognizing that just because you have a passion for it doesn't mean others will, and The Twelve Chairs is a shining example of that.