The Twelve Chairs (1970) Untouched DVD9 - Subs-Eng-Esp - Mel Bro

The Twelve Chairs (1970) Untouched DVD9 - Subs-Eng-Esp - Mel Brooks, Frank Langella [DDR]

The Twelve Chairs is a 1970 American comedy film directed by Mel Brooks, starring Frank Langella, Ron Moody and Dom DeLuise.
The screenplay was written by Brooks. The film was one of at least 18 film adaptations of the Russian 1928 novel The Twelve Chairs by Ilf and Petrov.

CAST:-
Mel Brooks as Tikon
Ron Moody as Ippolit Vorobyaninov
Frank Langella as Ostap Bender
Dom DeLuise as Father Fyodor
Andreas Voutsinas as Nikolai Sestrin
Diana Coupland as Madame Bruns
David Lander as Engineer Bruns
Vlada Petric as Sevitsky
Elaine Garreau as Claudia Ivanovna
Robert Bernal as Curator
Will Stampe as Night Watchman

Directed by Mel Brooks
Produced by Michael Hertzberg
Written by Mel Brooks
Music by John Morris
Running time 94 min.

MOVIE PLOT:- The Twelve Chairs (1970)
In the Soviet Union in 1927, Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov (Ron Moody), an impoverished aristocrat from Imperial Russia, is summoned, along with the village priest, to the deathbed of his mother-in-law. She reveals, before passing, that a fortune in 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 woman's Confession, the Russian Orthodox priest Father Fyodor (Dom DeLuise), who has arrived to give the Last Rites, decides to abandon the Church and attempt to steal the treasure. Shortly thereafter, a homeless con-artist, Ostap Bender (Frank Langella), meets the dispossessed nobleman and manipulates his way into a partnership in his search for the family riches.

The chairs, along with all other private property, had been expropriated by the State after the Russian Revolution. Vorobyaninov and Bender set off together to locate the chairs and recover the fortune, but are stymied by a series of false leads and other trying events. They find that the chairs have been split up and sold individually. Therefore, their hunt requires a great deal 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 Russian society, transforming the film into a satirical sendup of failing Communism.

By posing as the official in charge of the Department of Chairs, Bender tricks Father Fyodor into a wild goose chase after a set of eleven chairs similar to those being sought, these being now in the possession of an engineer named Bruns currently assigned to a remote province in Siberia. Father Fyodor makes the long journey, but the engineer is re-assigned to a post on the Black Sea, Father Fyodor follows them and finally manages to obtain the chairs (on the condition that the engineer and his wife never see him again). Unfortunately, he finds that none of the chairs have the jewels. Later, he catches up with Vorobyaninov and Bender after they have retrieved one chair from a circus, and while being chased by them frantically climbs with the chair straight up the side of a mountain. After finding out that this chair doesn't contain the jewels, he finds that he is unable to get down again without help and is left to his fate by the duo.

Eventually, but only after traveling many long weary miles and perpetrating plenty of cons to pay for the lengthy enterprise, the duo make their way back to Moscow where they discover the 12th and last chair that must – through process of elimination – contain the treasure. It is located in a Palace of Culture, which is inconvenient due to the presence of so many witnesses. After closing, the two return to the building, entering through a window Bender secretly unlocked earlier so they can open up the last chair in peace.

At the moment of discovery, Bender carefully and quietly opens the chair cushion with his knife, but their hopes are dashed as it is found to be, like all eleven before them, completely empty. Vorobyanninov is stunned and angry, while Bender cannot help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. A watchman then comes upon the protagonists, and Vorobyanninov demands to know what happened to the jewels. "Look around you," the watchman answers, explaining to the pair how the jewels were unexpectedly found one day and it was decided that the grand building in which they are now was built with the fortuitous fortune realized by the sale of the discovered gems. Driven into a sudden rage, he smashes the chair to pieces and assaults the officer whom the watchman has summoned. After admonishing him for hitting a policeman, Bender leads the way as the two make a hurried escape into the night.

Now at the end of his patience, demoralized, and bankrupted, Bender proposes that he and Vorobyaninov split up and go their separate ways. 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, Bender is unable to see how a con man could possibly survive long with an emotionally shattered nobleman and so after forcefully saying his peace, he begins to walk off. In a last-ditch effort to keep Bender from leaving, Vorobyaninov flings the remains of the last chair into the air, and collapses to the ground feigning an epileptic seizure as an invitation for Bender, the inveterate swindler, to rip off the crowd, a reprise of an earlier event in the story. Previously, as they were trying to decide what to do, the former noble had impetuously and derisively proclaimed to Bender that "there has never been a Vorobyaninov who begs!"

Bender 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, Bender watches the flailing of his longtime partner, as the crowd murmurs and mills about, seemingly unsure what to do. Bender calls for the attention of those around, asking for all the passers-by to gather around. Bender 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 that struck down our own beloved Dostoevsky!" He works the crowd by silent agreement and with professional skill. The movie ends as the two, using impromptu gestures, and without a word between them, cement their partnership.

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.
Behind the scenes
This film featured the screen debut of Frank Langella, who had previously been a stage actor. It also saw the first of many collaborations between Brooks and Dom DeLuise: they both worked on many of Brooks' films during the 1970s and 80s. Principal filming was done in Yugoslavia.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:-
Video Codec: MPEG-2
Video Bitrate: 8322 kbps
Video Resolution: 720x480
Video Aspect Ratio: 1.778:1
Frames Per Second: 29.970
Audio Codec: AC3
Audio Bitrate: 192kb/s CBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages: English
RunTime 94 mins
Subtitles: ENglish, Espanol
Ripped by: Trinidad [DDR]