Every Mel Brooks movie ranked from worst to best – Far Out Magazine (Credis: Far Out / Columbia Pictures / 20th Century Fox / Columbia TriStar Film…
Mel Brooks has enjoyed unprecedented success in the film industry as a director and comedian. He started working in show business at the ripe old age of 14, and made it to Hollywood in his early 20s to write for radio.
There, he met Carl Reiner, who would become one of his greatest collaborators. With sketches like The 2,000 Year Old Man, Brooks and Reiner made a name for themselves, and they began to devise more expansive projects.
Instead of continuing to work as a writer and comedian, Brooks decided to start directing his own screenplays. His feature debut, The Producers, is still a comedy classic, starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel as a duo trying to make the worst Broadway play of all time. For the next three decades, Brooks continued to produce comedy classics, including Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
He is not, in short, an underrated filmmaker. However, even the most revered directors have movies that fall through the cracks, and Brooks is no exception. Speaking to Consequence in 2020, the director reminisced about his 1970 period satire The Twelve Chairs. Adapted from Ilia Ilf and Evgenii Petrov’s 1928 novel of the same name, the film is set in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and follows three men from very different backgrounds who set out to find jewels hidden in one of 12 chairs that went missing during the revolution.
Sandwiched between The Producers and Blazing Saddles, The Twelve Chairs was met warmly by critics but ignored by audiences. Even now, when Brooks is a beloved icon and EGOT winner, it remains an overlooked gem.
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That muted reception left the film in an unusual position within Brooks’ catalogue. While it carried the same sharp wit and attention to character as his more famous works, it lacked the immediate, broad appeal that helped his other comedies become cultural staples. As a result, it quietly slipped past the mainstream despite strong critical support.
Over time, however, its reputation has shifted. Rather than being seen as a misstep, The Twelve Chairs has gained appreciation as a more nuanced and heartfelt entry in Brooks’ filmography, one that reveals a different side to his comedic instincts and rewards those willing to seek it out.
According to its director, the movie was more of an “art film” than a broad, crowd-pleasing comedy. As a result, it had a very limited distribution and only played in cities that had arthouse cinemas. Still, he got letters from people for years who discovered it in television reruns. “And they’re always these wonderful, emotional letters of how much they loved it,” he said, adding, “It’s all very nice. Of all the movies I’ve made, it’s one of my top favourites.”
Perhaps if the film had been released after Brooks had scored more than one hit, it might have fared better at the box office, but he didn’t yet have the legions of fans who would reliably show up to the cinema no matter what he was offering.
The fact that it still hasn’t earned the audience it deserves is the strangest thing, especially considering its cast. Blazing Saddles actor Dom DeLuise plays a priest, and Frank Langella makes his debut as a down-and-out con artist. “It is an extraordinarily sweet memory,” Langella told the Los Angeles Times in 1997. “I think it has the most heart of any film Mel has ever made. It has tremendous warmth and sweetness.”
For whatever reason, The Twelve Chairs remains under the radar, but it is still widely available for people to watch, which will come as great news for Brooks fans who have worn out their copies of The Producers and Blazing Saddles.
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