Synopsis
The Twelve Chairs (12 стульев, 1977) is Mark Zakharov's musical TV film of the Ilf and Petrov novel, available to watch online on iFILM. Smooth con man Ostap Bender and ruined ex-nobleman Kisa Vorobyaninov chase a set of dining chairs across the country — one of them hides a fortune in diamonds sewn into the upholstery.
It's the late-1920s Soviet Union under the NEP. The twelve chairs were auctioned off and scattered, so the pair zigzag from the provinces to Moscow, ripping open one seat after another. Andrei Mironov makes Bender a singing, grinning charmer, while Anatoly Papanov plays Kisa as a fussy man undone by greed. A rival priest, Father Fyodor, is hunting the same treasure and won't quit.
Zakharov shot this less like a film and more like a sparkling stage revue — songs by Gennady Gladkov, characters addressing the camera, a parade of cameos from Rolan Bykov, Oleg Tabakov, Zinovy Gerdt and a very young Alexander Abdulov. Soviet audiences know it by heart; it's chattier and more theatrical than the rival Gaidai version, and it lives or dies on the Mironov-Papanov double act. Stream The Twelve Chairs (1977) online on iFILM.
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