I had first watched this as a kid on Italian TV and it must have seemed very different to me than the typical Mel Brooks film (after all, THE TWELVE CHAIRS was only his second outing) but, back then, I wasn't familiar with THE PRODUCERS (1968) either; it was with his next effort, BLAZING SADDLES (1974), that Brooks really found a congenial formula, i.e. parody, which would occupy most of his subsequent career.
This was adapted from a popular Russian source much filmed over the years all over the world: in Britain as KEEP YOUR SEATS, PLEASE (1937), with George Formby (which I have just acquired but, alas, don't have time to watch at present), in the Hollywood as IT'S IN THE BAG (1945), co-starring Jack Benny, the international production 12+1 (1969) featuring the last appearance of the ill-fated Sharon Tate and a starry cast (Vittorio Gassman, Orson Welles, Terry-Thomas, etc.) and there's even a Cuban version from 1962 by Tomas Gutierrez Alea (which has recently been released on R2 DVD but which I have yet to acquire).
Brooks' version, then, is the only one I know of to utilize the original Russian setting which, in spite of generally amusing (if overly familiar) situations, rather makes for a dreary-looking film. For the most part, too, the show's more glum than fun with pratfalls uncomfortably rubbing shoulders with (misplaced) social conscience! In any case, Ron Moody (fresh from the success of OLIVER! [1968]) is ideally cast as an impoverished aristocrat in search of the family fortune sown into one of twelve chairs which have been sold to various parties following the 1917 uprisings. His co-stars are a dashing Frank Langella (who, incidentally, I watched performing on a London stage in January 2007 and might well be up for an Academy Award next February in Ron Howard's film adaptation of that very play I saw him in, i.e. FROST/NIXON) as a wily schemer, who plays it straight but is equally effective, and Dom DeLuise as the greedy priest to whom Moody's relative has confessed before expiring; I suppose that his hysterical shtick and zany antics seemed funny at the time but it's rather overbearing to watch nowadays. Last but not least, Brooks himself cameos (he'd appear in all of his own films from then on) as Moody's loyal but befuddled servant.
This was adapted from a popular Russian source much filmed over the years all over the world: in Britain as KEEP YOUR SEATS, PLEASE (1937), with George Formby (which I have just acquired but, alas, don't have time to watch at present), in the Hollywood as IT'S IN THE BAG (1945), co-starring Jack Benny, the international production 12+1 (1969) featuring the last appearance of the ill-fated Sharon Tate and a starry cast (Vittorio Gassman, Orson Welles, Terry-Thomas, etc.) and there's even a Cuban version from 1962 by Tomas Gutierrez Alea (which has recently been released on R2 DVD but which I have yet to acquire).
Brooks' version, then, is the only one I know of to utilize the original Russian setting which, in spite of generally amusing (if overly familiar) situations, rather makes for a dreary-looking film. For the most part, too, the show's more glum than fun with pratfalls uncomfortably rubbing shoulders with (misplaced) social conscience! In any case, Ron Moody (fresh from the success of OLIVER! [1968]) is ideally cast as an impoverished aristocrat in search of the family fortune sown into one of twelve chairs which have been sold to various parties following the 1917 uprisings. His co-stars are a dashing Frank Langella (who, incidentally, I watched performing on a London stage in January 2007 and might well be up for an Academy Award next February in Ron Howard's film adaptation of that very play I saw him in, i.e. FROST/NIXON) as a wily schemer, who plays it straight but is equally effective, and Dom DeLuise as the greedy priest to whom Moody's relative has confessed before expiring; I suppose that his hysterical shtick and zany antics seemed funny at the time but it's rather overbearing to watch nowadays. Last but not least, Brooks himself cameos (he'd appear in all of his own films from then on) as Moody's loyal but befuddled servant.