Cabaret

Bob Fosse, USA, 1972, 123 minutes

This stylish film is set in Berlin in 1931, just as the Nazis are evolving from laughing-stocks to a prominent force. Based on Christopher Isherwood's book of anecdotes from the era, 'Goodbye to Berlin', it's an Uncompromising recreation of the sleaze, decadence and sexual ambiguity of the Berlin cabaret scene, and the rise of extremism out of a moral vacuum. It won a hatful of Oscars, and was the first musical to get an X certificate. Liza Minelli plays Sally Bowles, a chatty, optimistic cabaret singer who will sleep with anyone to help start her movie career. She falls for English tutor Michael York, and wealthy Helmut Green is attracted to both of them. The film went back to old-style musicals in that nearly all the musical numbers take place on stage in the cabaret - except for an eerie rendition of 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me' by young Nazis in an open-air cafe; there is none of the spontaneous breaking into song in incongruous settings that for some people make musicals so hard to watch.

Review by Allan Smithee
Taken from EUFS Programme 1993-94