In post-revolutionary Cuba, a wealthy lady makes her deathbed confession. She has hidden a fortune in jewels in one of twelve imported English chairs. Her son-in-law Hipólito Garrigó (Enrique Seniesteban), stripped of his wealth under the new socialist regime, searches desperately for them. Out of his depth in Socialist Cuba, Hipólito hooks up with the quick-witted Oscar (Reynaldo Miravalles), who was once his servant. With the government auctioning off Hipólito’s precious possessions, the duo journey far and wide trying to retrieve the chairs. In the course of their misadventures, Hipólito faces a rude awakening to social changes while the once-deferential Oscar sees his boss in a different light.
Opening with still images of happy, smiling faces following Castro’s revolution, The Twelve Chairs segues into an animated prologue (its jazzy, modernist style reminiscent of UPA, creators of Mister Magoo and Gerald McBoing-Boing) that shows the wealthy, old woman frantically hiding her jewels. You hardly need bother watching the rest of the movie, the whole theme is outlined right here: greedy, cartoon capitalists make way for the socialist revolution. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s film reworks the Russian novel “12 Stulyev” by Illya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov, a satirical depiction of the early days of the Soviet Revolution. The novel was adapted again in 1970, by Mel Brooks of all people, with a faithful Russian setting, but Alea’s adaptation has an immediacy that must have played well to Cuban audiences. In its early stages the broad, satirical tone is reminiscent of Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (1961), however as a comedy it sags badly in the middle. A sub-plot involving a money-grubbing priest also searching for the chairs, doesn’t add very much except the subtle-as-a-brick socialist subtext that religion, like capitalism, is one big con. The satire is aimed solely at the old regime and insidious influences. A caricatured, americanised blonde inanely intones, “That’s the American way of life!” An ex-hooker says she and her friends went out of business because all the capitalists moved to Miami (Because communists would never sleep with a prostitute, right?) Hipólito remains an odious leech and learns nothing from his odyssey, while good-hearted Oscar (who nonetheless isn’t above scamming money from friends) eventually unmasks the duplicitous buffoon and learns to appreciate Castro’s Cuba.
Its portrayal of Cuba as a new, socialist paradise (with happy workers singing on their way to toil in the fields) now seems hopelessly naïve. At the end of the day, whether capitalist or socialist, propaganda is propaganda, whether it’s dressed up in the slick production values of a Hollywood blockbuster, or the earnest simplicity of neo-realism. As satire, the film’s concerns are too parochial, too of their time to resonate. What’s more, as a comedy it just isn’t that funny.
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