Looking at the schedule for TCM today, I find myself once again drawn to discussing favorite movies of directors, actors, and writers that aren’t the obvious choices for most people. Of course, when I think to myself that I love a film that no one else likes, I know in reality that plenty of other people like it, it’s just not the most popular choice. I’ve written about this here before, in a post on having the “wrong” favorite movie, which is to say, the favorite movie of a director or actor that isn’t what most people would naturally select. I’d like to delve a little deeper this time and make the case for a movie that I love even if it’s not the first movie people think of when thinking of the main artists involved. Which movie on today’s schedule got me thinking about this? The Twelve Chairs, my favorite Mel Brooks’ movie.
At this point, you’re either nodding in agreement or mumbling under your breath that I’m crazy (yes, I can hear you). The fact is, I have seen Young Frankenstein so many times I have it memorized. I think it’s one of the greatest comedies ever produced and will go to bat for it as Brooks’ best movie. It’s just that, well, The Twelve Chairs was on television a lot in the seventies. On Saturday afternoons, one of our local stations ran it a lot, so much so I have to suspect it was one of the few prints of any movie they had a copy of so they ran it again and again. Then, in the early eighties, when we first got cable, it was on again (Showtime, I think), around the clock. It honestly seems, in retrospect, as if the movie must have somehow become public domain because that’s the Mel Brooks movie I kept seeing. The upshot was, I liked it. Hell, I loved it. It was my first exposure to Frank Langella and he and Ron Moody work extraordinarily well together. To this day, I think it’s Ron Moody’s best performance, even better than his Fagin in Oliver! It’s big, loud, in your face comedic performance, the type Mel Brooks loved to direct, and Moody manages to keep it both big and contained. It’s cartoonish but with a distinct air of restraint, if that makes any sense.
If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s based on a satirical Russian novel from 1928 in which Ippolit Matveyevich “Kisa” Vorobyaninov (Ron Moody) discovers that his Mother-in-Law hid all of the family’s jewels from the Bolsheviks by sewing them into one of the twelve chairs of their dining room set, which has now been packed up and shipped out. Con man Ostap Bender (Frank Langella) forces his way into the situation and he and Kisa search for the chairs, which have now been sent off to different locations. Also searching for the chairs is a defrocked priest, Father Fyodor, played by Dom DeLuise. The race between the two parties leads them to one chair after another and, invariably, each found chair contains no jewel. Will they ever get the right one?
I like the movie for several reasons. One, it has very little Mel Brooks in it. That’s not a knock against Mel, I love the guy, it’s just that my favorite movies of his (this one obviously, Young Frankenstein, The Producers) seem to have a low Mel quotient. Again, I love the guy but, for whatever reason, I don’t like him that much in his movies. Anyway, that said, he appears here only briefly, near the beginning, as a drunken former servant of Kisa, and gets the story rolling. And then he’s gone.
Another reason I like it is the look. I think it’s a beautiful looking movie and, filmed on location in Yugoslavia, the architecture and natural sights lend a beauty that no other Brooks’ film possesses (excepting the brilliantly realized look of Young Frankenstein but that was going for a specific type of homage as well). I confess, sometimes I watch a movie literally to just watch the movie, as in, don’t pay any attention to the movie itself, just enjoy the look. With this movie being so available to me in the seventies and eighties, I found it was good for just that thing much of the time.
But mainly, I like it because it’s not as “big” as other Mel Brooks movies, not as “to the hilt” as some of the others. Mel Brooks movies have a tendency to shout their jokes at you, metaphorically speaking (but sometimes literally as well) whereas The Twelve Chairs is a Mel Brooks movie told in a conversational tone, or as close to possible as that is for him. Sure, there’s some stuff here that kills that tone (most of it having to do with Dom DeLuise, my least favorite part of the movie), like the occasional sped-up footage which, I swear, I have not only never found funny nor understand why anyone else would, but mostly it’s a gentle comedy, the gentlest one in the Mel Brooks canon. Maybe that’s why it’s not as popular as the rest.
Of course, I’m not saying any of this because I expect you to watch it and feel the same way. Comedy is the damnedest thing in the world to connect on. It’s the one genre I almost never recommend because people have such widely varying senses of humor. But here’s the thing: I’ve never really laughed that hard at The Twelve Chairs anyway. It’s not about being really funny, it’s about watching a movie that makes me feel good. And The Twelve Chairs makes me feel good. So what if it’s not Brooks’ best movie. It’s my favorite. That’s enough.