The Twelve Chairs
Published February 18th, 2008 in UncategorizedThe Twelve Chairs () (1928) is a classic satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov. Its main character, Ostap Bender, reappears in the book’s sequel, The Little Golden Calf.
Plot
In the novel, the con man, Ostap Bender, meets dispossessed nobleman, Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobianinov. Vorobianinov has just discovered, during the deathbed confession of his mother-in-law, that a set of jewels had been hidden from the Bolsheviks in one of the twelve chairs from the family’s dining room set.
Those chairs, along with all other personal property, had been expropriated by the government after the Russian Revolution. Bender forces Vorobianinov (whom he calls by his funny childhood name, sexy, which means “kitty-cat” in Russian) to partner with him, which ultimately helps Kisa who lacks Bender’s charm and street smarts. Sexy and Bender set off together to locate the chairs and recover the fortune, but are stymied by a series of false leads, obstacles, and humorous events.
They find the chairs auctioned off early on, but, after placing the final bid, fail to pay for them. The chairs are thus split up and sold individually, and so after lots of travel, meeting “comrades” from every walk of life in Soviet Russia, and perpetrating plenty of cons to pay for the enterprise, the duo eventually discovers the last, 12th chair, that must - through process of elimination - contain the treasure.
Vorobianinov bites Bender’s throat open to avoid splitting the loot. He then discovers that the jewels have already been found, and their proceeds spent on building a new worker’s bar and grill Palace of Culture.
Adaptations
The book was first made into a film called “Keep Your Seats Please” in 1936 by Ealing Studios, starring George Formby. The main difference between the book and the film was that the story revolved around seven chairs, not twelve. Mel Brooks later made a second film titled, The Twelve Chairs (1970); this film also served as the basis for the film The Thirteen Chairs (1969). Shortly after that, two films were made in the USSR: one in 1971 by Leonid Gaidai and the other in 1976 by Mark Zakharov, featuring Andrei Mironov as Bender. See The Twelve Chairs (film) for more details on adaptations.
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