In the Soviet Union in 1927, Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov Ron Moody, an impoverished aristocrat turned local village bureaucrat, is summoned to the deathbed of his mother-in-law. She reveals before dying that a fortune in jewels had been hidden from the Bolsheviks by sewing it into the seat cushion of one of the twelve chairs from the family dining set. After hearing this confession, the Russian Orthodox priest Father Fyodor Dom DeLuise decides to abandon the Church and attempt to steal the treasure.
Shortly afterwards in Stargorod, where Vorobyaninov's former mansion is located, a homeless con-artist Ostap Bender Frank Langella crosses paths with the desperate nobleman and manipulates his way into a partnership in the search for the fortune. The chairs, having been appropriated by the State after the Russian Revolution, set the stage for a wild and sprawling hunt. Vorobyaninov and Bender press on, only to be halted by a long chain of false leads and tricky obstacles. They discover that the chairs have been split up and sold individually, so their quest must roam far and wide to locate each piece and test whether it might conceal the jewels.
Their search leads them to a labyrinth of impersonations and schemes. At one point, Bender poses as an official in charge of the Department of Chairs and lures Father Fyodor into a frantic goose chase to recover a similar set in Siberia. Fyodor travels the long road only to be thrust out of the engineer Bruns's house; when the engineer is reassigned to a post on the Black Sea, Fyodor follows and ends up buying counterfeit chairs (on the condition that the engineer and his wife never see him again). He discovers that none of the chairs contain jewels and, overwhelmed by despair, tries to kill himself. Later, he encounters Vorobyaninov and Bender after they have pulled a chair from a circus, and, while being chased by them, climbs frantically up the side of a mountain with the chair in tow. After learning that the chair contains no jewels, Fyodor realizes he cannot descend on his own, and Vorobyaninov and Bender leave him to his fate.
Returning to Moscow, Vorobyaninov and Bender uncover the last chair at a recreation center for railway workers, a location crowded with potential witnesses. They slip back in after closing time through a window Bender had quietly unlocked earlier. When Bender carefully opens the chair cushion, they find it empty. A watchman confronts them, and the watchman explains that the jewels they briefly uncovered financed the construction of the recreation center. Enraged, Vorobyaninov smashes the chair to pieces and assaults the officer who summons aid, while Bender urges him to calm down and they slip away into the night.
The next day, Bender proposes they go their separate ways to avoid the authorities, but Vorobyaninov’s audacious plan to keep him from leaving is ready. He theatrically flings the remains of the last chair into the air and pretends an epileptic seizure to draw a crowd—an old ruse they once used on the road. Sensing the crowd’s sympathy, Bender steps forward to beg the passers-by for help, and the duo conclude that their partnership in crime will endure, united by their shared appetite for a windfall and a stubborn, stubborn pull toward luck.
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