Die 12 Stühle

The best Soviet film I have ever seen. Interesting and fascinating Adventures of Kis Vorobyaninov Ostap Bender fascinate. It's a good and entertaining movie, I highly recommend watching it.

The tag line suggests this movie was made because the Soviet Union "couldn't stand the unauthentic version." They should have quit while they were ahead. The Mel Brooks version is light, funny, upbeat and short--compared to this monstrosity that takes almost 3 hours to view. It is true, Brooks changed the ending while this version is true to the Ilf and Petrov version, but that only improves the story. This is a plodding, un-funny, self-conscious and dreary movie, most of which should have been left on the cutting-room floor--in other words, a typical product of what passed for art in the Soviet Union. Worth seeing only so you can appreciate how much better the American Version is.

Incidentally, there is also a Cuban version of the story, set in post-Castro Cuba, which is also totally unwatchable. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055915/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_4

As a big fan of Ilf and Petrov's masterpieces I couldn't watch this version. It contains quite simple Gaidai's humor but not sharp and intelligent humor of authors. Zakharov's version is much closer to book and embodies original jokes. And, of course, genius Mironov is No2 Ostap Bender after Yurski. Though actors are great in both versions, 77's did the best. The very important part of Ilf & Petrov's literature is the author's voice, which was masterfully implemented in 1977 (by the way the one who worked as author's voice was famous Rolan Bykov, who played Panikovsky in 1968 Zolotoy Telenok (Golden Taurus)) but Gaidai didn't use such feature and lost the majority of book's spirit.

Director Leonid Gaidai had a talent for comedy like no one else. His adaptation of the great humorous book is also great and gives a lot of good laughs.

The acting... it's just excellent. It only shows the respect the cast and crew had for the authors - Ilya Ilf and Evgenij Petrov. And there is no doubt that Archil Gomiashvili, may he rest in piece, was and is the best Ostap Bender ever. He was really meant to play this part.

I say, this movie may not be perfect but it is totally better than the "12 chairs" by Zacharaov.

It's just great.

This videofilm is not only the comedy. This film depicts many various aspects of the human life not only in the USSR but also on the whole planet Earth. This film was actual in the past time, is actual now and seems that it will be actual in the future.

The film shows the internal life of the people's society: from the ordinary janitor to the figures of the governmental level. It shows, in a form of a comedy, those sides of the human kind which they themselves will never tell you about.

One of the best films ever made on this planet!