The Twelve Chairs

The Twelve Chairs (Russian: 12 стульев) is a 1971 Soviet comedy film directed by Leonid Gaidai. It is an adaptation of the novel, The Twelve Chairs.

Plot
"The son of a Turkish citizen" comes to the city of Stargorod - the adventurer Ostap-Suleiman-Berta-Maria-Bender-Bey. In the city he meets the janitor Tikhon. Tikhon talks about his former master, and in the past the leader of the nobility - Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov, and how he emigrated to Paris after the revolution.

Suddenly, Ippolit Matveyevich himself appeared in the janitorial office, becoming the registrar of the registry office in the county town. It turned out that before his mother-in-law's death, she said that in the seat of one of the twelve chairs seized during the revolutionary arrest, she sewed up her diamonds worth 150 thousand. Vorobyaninov returned to Stargorod to find them. Ostap is taken to help Kiesa. They conclude a concession.

In addition to Vorobyaninov, the secret of his mother-in-law was confessed by her holy father Fyodor Vostrikov, who had been dreaming of his own candle factory in Samara all his life, and also went to hunt for chairs. In an adventurous way, Bender receives warrants for “Vorobyanin's” chairs from archivist Bartholomew Korobeynikov, while his father Fyodor the archivist presents a warrant for the chairs of General Popova, where there are no treasures.

In the two chairs remaining in Stargorod, nothing appears. The rest of the chairs are in Moscow, where Ostap and Kisa are sent. There they learn that the chairs will be sold at auction. But because of the stupidity of Vorobyaninov, who managed to spend his part of the money, the chairs “float away” from his hands. With the help of various tricks, the concessionaires find 4 chairs, but there is nothing in them. Leaving one chair, which was lost at the train station in Moscow, the heroes decide to look for the four remaining, who go on tour with the theater on the ship Scriabin. Both are hired by artists on this ship. There they open a well-obtained chair, and he was without treasures.

On the river, the concessionaires get to Cheboksary, and then fall into Pyatigorsk. There, they catch up with three more chairs, but one chair could slip away from them.

The theater goes on tour and the heroes go to Vladikavkaz. In the 11th chair, it was also empty. On the way, on the Georgian Military Highway, Bender and Vorobyaninov meet Father Fyodor, who spent all his savings on fake Vorobyaninov’s chairs, found nothing there and went crazy.

Returning to Moscow, Bender finds out that the last chair is in the club of railway workers. The distraught Vorobyaninov, out of fear that Ostap would leave him with nothing, kills sleeping Bender with a knife. Having made his way to the club, Kisa Vorobyaninov learns from the watchman that treasures hidden by the bourgeois were found in the chair, and the club was repaired on them. After this unexpected news, Vorobyaninov, having opened the last chair, in despair emits “a cry of a wolf shot through” ...

The film ends with a camera flight over the monuments to Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) and Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), as well as over the non-existent monument to Ilya Ilf (1897-1937) and Evgeny Petrov (1902-1942). Crowds of people go to the cinema for the premiere of "12 Chairs" by Leonid Gaidai (1923-1993). Pictured on the poster, Ostap Bender says: “I consider the meeting closed. Thanks for your attention!".

Cast

 * Archil Gomiashvili as Ostap Bender (voiced by Yuri Sarantsev, vocal by Valeri Zolotukhin, in some episodes speaks in his own voice)
 * Sergey Filippov as Kisa Vorobianinov
 * Mikhail Pugovkin as Father Fyodor
 * Natalya Krachkovskaya as Madame Gritsatsuyeva
 * Igor Yasulovich as Ernest Shchukin, engineer
 * Natalya Vorobyova as Ellochka Schukina, Ernest Shchukin's wife
 * Klara Rumyanova as Katerina Alexandrovna, Father Fyodor's wife
 * Natalya Varley as Liza (voiced by Nadezhda Rumyantseva)
 * Georgy Vitsin as fitter Mechnikov
 * Savely Kramarov as one-eyed chess player
 * Viktor Pavlov as Kolya, Liza's husband
 * Gotlib Roninson as chairman Kislyarsky
 * Roman Filippov as poet Nikifor Lyapis-Trubetskoy
 * Grigory Shpigel as Aleksandr Yakovlevich
 * Yuri Nikulin as janitor Tikhon
 * Glikeriya Bogdanova-Chesnokova as Elena Stanislavovna Bour
 * Vladimir Etush as Andrey Bruns
 * Leonid Gaidai as Varfolomey Korobeynikov
 * Rostislav Plyatt as Narrator