Mein Opa und die 13 Stühle (1996)

Franz Sedlak’s granddaughter Sami receives a letter from a notary informing her that she has become the sole heir of her great-aunt Karoline Weber of Klagenfurt. When Franz and Sami enter the apartment, Franz is the first to notice a portrait of his late sister. Then they see that the apartment is empty except for 13 chairs. The caretaker tells them that Karoline sold the expensive furniture from the rented apartment. He suggests that they have the chairs auctioned and gets Franz’s instructions to take them there for the auction the following day. The next day, the caretaker gives Franz a letter from Karoline that he found by the picture. In this will, Franz reads that Karoline sewed 3,000,000 schillings (about €218,000) in cash into one of the 13 chairs. The auction now turns out to have been a huge mistake, and Franz hurries with Sami to the Dorotheum in Klagenfurt to get the chairs back. Franz sees an employee carrying chairs and bids up to 10,000 schillings in an auction already in progress. At the cashier’s desk, it turns out that Franz has bought not the chairs but a large plaster sculpture called “Venus.” Reluctantly, he takes possession of it; outside, it slips from his hands and breaks in two. Franz now seeks help from Wolfgang Ohr, who owns an art shop. Through his connections, Wolfgang obtains the addresses of the nine new owners of the 13 chairs. Franz and Sami now begin a strenuous, frantic search for the millions. They find the first chair at Oskar Myrna’s, who later turns out to be a casino supervisor. So Sami can cut it open, Franz distracts Oskar by cooking, which leads to an explosion in the kitchen. The chair contains no money. The next chair is at the home of opera singer Sebasta, who has a problem with his vocal cords. Franz distracts him by looking into his mouth and showing him his uvula. Sami cuts open the upholstery, but finds nothing there either. However, without realizing it, they help the singer hit a high B by having him sit on the spring of the broken chair. The search continues at a strip club, where Franz meets Wolfgang. Franz is unwillingly called onto the stage and, while seated, helps the stripper; at the same time, he cuts open the chair. It is empty. At Countess Wetterstein’s, who is mourning her late tomcat, Wolfgang and Franz find the next two chairs. They offer the countess their condolences, believing that her husband has died. But the countess tells them about her cat’s final days. Once again, there is nothing in the chairs. They then go to a married couple who are looking for a male actor to fill a role in a play. When Franz and Wolfgang show up, the master of the house takes them for applicants, while his wife thinks Wolfgang would be very well suited to the role. She immediately rehearses the play with him, though Wolfgang knows nothing about it. Meanwhile, Franz cuts open the two chairs there, but finds nothing. The search next leads to Porcia Castle. In a Baroque room, mannequins dressed in period costumes are sitting on the chairs. Just as Wolfgang and Franz are about to cut them open, a castle tour passes through the room. Two young women lagging behind mistake Wolfgang and Franz for Baroque mannequins. One of the young women changes her clothes in the room, prompting Wolfgang to “look”; Franz gets the hiccups, and the two are taken for mannequins that can move. When the truth comes out, the two women flee. There is nothing in the chairs again. The next two chairs are in an ORF television studio. Franz and Sami pretend to be the expected guests, a deep-sea diver and his assistant. But during the interview Franz cannot give any expert answers. Pretending to fend off a shark attack, the two cut open the chairs on live television. The duped director cuts the broadcast. The grandfather-and-granddaughter pair hand the broken chairs to the real divers waiting outside. Franz finds the next chair in the slot-machine area of the Klagenfurt casino. There he encounters Oskar again. Nervously tossing coins into a machine as a cover, Franz hits the jackpot, but fails to notice and runs off with the chair, which once again contains nothing. The last chair is in the office of a psychiatrist. Franz pretends to have a phobia of chairs. When she tries to give him an injection, he feigns a panic attack and throws the already-cut-open chair out the window. It lands in the bed of a passing truck collecting donations for the children’s home. The abbot of the religiously run children’s home discovers the money and a note from the deceased (“May this money bring happiness and blessings”) inside the chair. He calls all the children over and announces that the millions will allow him to expand the home. Franz and Sami watch this scene. Franz is upset, but Sami says that a home like that is more important than a bicycle factory—the example Franz used at the beginning to explain the fortune to her. As they wait at the end of the platform at Klagenfurt station, Wolfgang and Oskar come over and tell Franz that he hit the casino jackpot and won 4,000,000 schillings. Franz gives the millions to Sami; the two of them buy two racing bicycles and ride them along Vienna’s Prater Hauptallee.