Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" wrote, "For some reason, this sort of comedy of physical insult seemed much funnier to me in the Broadway world of "The Producers", which is really aggressive and nasty and cheap, than in a Russia that is not too far removed from the world of Sholem Aleichem." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film four stars out of four and wrote that while "you do laugh a lot ... It's not going for the laughs alone. It has something to say about honor among thieves, and by the end of the film we can sense a bond between the two main characters that is even, amazingly, human." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" also gave the film four stars out of four, finding that it was not only funny but remarkable for "the quality of [Brooks's] direction, not even considering that "The Twelve Chairs" is only his second film. Brooks is in complete control of the many film techniques—visual and dramatic—he employs: slow motion, speed-ups and sight gags clearly borrowed from the silent era." Charles Champlin of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that "despite some nicely farcical and stylized moments—many of them provided by Brooks himself in a cameo role as a drunken servant—the movie's first half isn't strong enough to override a thin and disappointing second half." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" found the film "much more consistent and fluid than Brooks' first film, "The Producers". You don't gyrate as wildly between inspired and mediocre bits, but the 'wild' bits, the "idees fixes,"are still there, performed brilliantly by Moody and DeLuise and Brooks himself." Richard Combs of "The Monthly Film Bulletin" wrote that Dom DeLuise "simpers and slavers to great effect as the piously greedy Father Fyodor ... DeLuise, in fact, considerably outshines the two leads."