Mel Brooks, a favorite here at TVWW, used his clout from the success of his original movie comedy The Producers, starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, to direct his pet project, this 1970 comedy based on a story by his favorite comic Russian writers, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov. And the fact that Brooks, at that early stage of his career, had favorite comic Russian writers, says a lot about Brooks. Ron Moody and Frank Langella star in this story of a fortune in jewels supposedly sewn into the cushion of one of a dozen family chairs in 1920s Russia.

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