The Twelve Chairs (1970)

          Having secured his small-screen reputation by co-creating two beloved franchises (Get Smart and The 2000-Year-Old Man), comedy auteur Mel Brooks made a bold move into features by writing and directing The Producers (1968). Despite a fractious production process and a disappointing run at the box office, the picture netted Brooks an Academy Award, for Best Original Screenplay. Yet instead of following up The Producers with another original work, which would have seemed like the logical move, Brooks made The Twelve Chairs, a new adaptation of an oft-filed Russian novel that was originally published in 1926. The movie engendered some goodwill, but it didn’t play to Brooks’ strengths of frenetic pacing and goofy slapstick. Quite to the contrary, The Twelve Chairs is melancholy, and much of the picture is devoted to dramatic storytelling as opposed to comedy. Mel Brooks is many things, but a tragedian is not one of them. Furthermore, because the picture is generally played “straight,” the occasional lowbrow moments—think actors mugging for the camera and/or wild physical-comedy scenes—feel out of place. Partially as a result of this tonal dissonance, The Twelve Chairs is the dullest of Brooks’ features, even though it’s also the most thematically ambitious.

          The story is very simple. In the Soviet Union a decade after the communist revolution, former aristocrat Vorobyaninov (Ron Moody) learns that his mother hid the family’s jewelry stash inside one chair that’s part of a set of twelve. Dazzled by notions of reclaiming his lost wealth, the greedy Vorobyaninov begins to search for the chairs. He’s aided in his quest by a dashing con man, Bender (Frank Langella), but these two must compete with a corrupt priest, Father Fyodor (Dom DeLuise), who hears about the jewels and tries to beat Vorobyaninov to them. Also thrown into the mix is Vorobyaninov’s former manservant, amiable idiot Tikon (Brooks). Virtually every character in The Twelve Chairs is repulsive, and, unfortunately, the leads are the least appealing in the batch: Vorobyaninov is a hot-tempered elitist willing to steamroller over anyone in his way, and Bender is a silver-tongued swindler.
          Moody’s angry, charmless performance doesn’t help matters, and neither does Langella’s overly theatrical suaveness. (This was one of the stage-trained actor’s first films.) As for supporting players Brooks and DeLuise, who perform in the broad manner one normally associates with Brooks’ work, they’re funny, after a fashion, but they’re out of sync with the rest of the picture. Similarly, Brooks’ periodic attempts to juice the movie’s comedy by resorting to the old-time camera gimmick of sped-up action seem desperate. So while it’s true that The Twelve Chairs is the closest thing in Brooks’ directorial filmography to a serious story, there’s a reason he found success with outrageous comedy—he’s a master of screen comedy, and merely a dilettante in the realm of thoughtful cinema. Therefore, if curiosity about Brooks’ oeuvre compels you to check out The Twelve Chairs, follow the advice of the song Brooks wrote for the film: “Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst.”

The Twelve Chairs: FUNKY

Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970)

          New York director Frank Perry’s films tended toward pretentiousness, but amid his arty flourishes he demonstrated a fine gift for guiding performances, especially by actresses. Thus, it’s no surprise that his most widely admired film, Diary of a Mad Housewife, is virtually a one-woman show for leading lady Carrie Snodgress. With Perry’s sympathetic but unflinching camera studying every nuance of her suffering, Snodgress plays Tina Balser, the underappreciated spouse of successful young attorney Jonathan Balser (Richard Benjamin). Jonathan is an asshole of the first order, a name-dropping narcissist obsessed with professional and social advancement; he alternately treats Tina as a sex toy, a shrink, a slave, a sounding board, and a subject for psychological abuse. In the film’s arresting opening scenes, Perry and screenwriter Eleanor Perry (the director’s then-wife) succinctly illustrate every aspect of the Balsers’ suffocating lifestyle—we’re so primed for Tina’s escape from Jonathan’s oppression that when she meets a potential partner for an adulterous tryst, it feels like a triumphant moment.

          Alas, Tina’s would-be paramour, writer George Prager (Frank Langella), is merely a different breed of asshole. One of those smug swingers who justifies his callous behavior with fancy language about surmounting bourgeois hang-ups, George treats Tina tenderly when they’re in bed, and abysmally when they’re not. The journey of the movie is Tina’s quest for some kind of validation—whether it’s George complimenting her lovemaking or Jonathan recognizing the work she invests keeping their household afloat—because she’s beyond desperate for evidence proving her life means something. The fascinating quality of Diary of a Mad Housewife is that Tina never really snaps, which would have been the predictable path for the story to follow; instead, even when Jonathan belittles her in front of their two impressionable daughters, Tina barks but doesn’t bite.

          Emboldened by her adultery, however, she relishes keeping a secret from her schmuck spouse, and interesting questions get raised about how deeply Tina savors the creature comforts Jonathan’s success provides—has she been co-opted by the status-symbol system that’s oppressing her?

          Benjamin is terrific here, transforming obsequiousness into an art form, and Langella, in his first feature, mostly surmounts the overwritten extremes of his role. However, since she’s in nearly every scene, it’s all about Snodgress, who came virtually out of nowhere to score in this movie—her previous screen credits comprised a handful of minor guest shots on television. Snodgress’ relatable vulnerability earned the actress a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. Following a second 1970 feature and a 1971 telefilm, though, Snodgress left Hollywood for a long romance with rock legend Neil Young. She didn’t return to movies until 1978’s The Fury, the project that began her transition from leading roles to minor character roles.

Diary of a Mad Housewife: GROOVY

The Wrath of God (1972)

          Not to be confused with the amazing German film Aguirre: The Wrath of God, which was also released in 1972, this American production is a routine action picture starring the venerable Robert Mitchum as a gun-toting con man wreaking havoc in South America during the 1920s. Notwithstanding Mitchum’s top billing, the lead character is actually portrayed by workaday Scottish actor Ken Hutchison. He plays Emmet, a ne’er-do-well European stranded in a dingy Latin American nation. Emmet reluctantly accepts a job from corpulent gringo crook Jennings (Victor Buono) to drive a truck filled with illegal liquor to the U.S. Along the way, Emmet meets an amiable priest named Father Van Horne (Mitchum). Next, Emmet gets into a hassle while preventing banditos from raping a native woman, Chela (Paula Pritchett). Unexpectedly, Van Horne comes to his new friend’s aid—by unleashing the machine gun hidden in his luggage. Yet somehow, the storyline gets even morerandom after that turn of events.

          A powerful military official, Colonel Santila (John Colicos), recruits Emmet, Jennings, and Van Horne for a suicide mission to depose Thomas De La Plata (Frank Langella), the crazed aristocrat controlling a small town, so the movie’s climax involves a violent showdown between the “heroes” and De La Plata’s ruthless gang. Featuring all of these disparate elements plus other incidental flourishes, like Rita Hayworth’s tiny role as De La Plata’s mother, The Wrath of Godis diffuse in the extreme. Produced and directed by the proficient Ralph Nelson, the movie can’t decide on a consistent tone or a main character: The picture vacillates between black comedy and bloody action while the Emmet and Van Horne characters compete for prominence. Nonetheless, some of what happens is mildly exciting, and some of the actors deliver enjoyably florid performances. Buono’s sardonic volatility complements Langella’s over-the-top intensity, for instance, although Mitchum is Mitchum, to the degree that he sometimes seems as if he wandered in from another movie. Poor Hutchison gets lost in the shuffle, particularly since his character’s motivation seems to change with every scene. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

The Wrath of God: FUNKY