Cabaret (1972)

Director:

Bob Fosse

Writers:

Joe Masteroff (book)
John Van Druten (play)
(more)

Release Date:

13 February 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Music | Musical | Romance

Tagline:

The Award-Winning Smash Hit Musical [UK Video]

Plot:

A female girlie club entertainer in Weimar Republic era Berlin romances two men while the Nazi Party rises to power around them.

Plot Keywords:

Dancer | 1930s | Cabaret | Entertainer | Political Unrest

Awards:

Won 8 Oscars. Another 24 wins & 13 nominations

Cast

Liza Minnelli	...	Sally Bowles
Michael York	...	Brian Roberts
Helmut Griem	...	Maximilian von Heune
Joel Grey	...	Master of Ceremonies
Fritz Wepper	...	Fritz Wendel
Marisa Berenson	...	Natalia Landauer
Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel	...	Fräulein Schneider
Helen Vita	...	Fräulein Kost
Sigrid von Richthofen	...	Fräulein Mayr (as Sigrid Von Richthofen)
Gerd Vespermann	...	Bobby
Ralf Wolter	...	Herr Ludwig
Georg Hartmann	...	Willi
Ricky Renée	...	Elke (as Ricky Renee)
Estrongo Nachama	...	Cantor
Kathryn Doby	...	Kit-Kat Dancer
Inge Jaeger	...	Kit-Kat Dancer
Angelika Koch	...	Kit-Kat Dancer
Helen Velkovorska	...	Kit-Kat Dancer
Gitta Schmidt	...	Kit-Kat Dancer
Louise Quick	...	Kit-Kat Dancer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Oliver Collignon	...	Hitler youth singer (uncredited)

Directed by
Bob Fosse

Writing credits
Joe Masteroff		(book of the musical play "Cabaret")
John Van Druten		(play "I Am a Camera")
Christopher Isherwood		(stories)
Jay Presson Allen		(screenplay) (as Jay Allen)

Produced by
Cy Feuer	....	producer
Harold Nebenzal	....	associate producer

Original Music by
John Kander

Cinematography by
Geoffrey Unsworth

Film Editing by
David Bretherton

Casting by
Renate Neuchl

Production Design by
Rolf Zehetbauer

Art Direction by
Hans Jürgen Kiebach		(as Jurgen Kiebach)

Costume Design by
Charlotte Flemming

Makeup Department
Susi Krause	....	hair stylist
Susi Krause	....	makeup artist
Gus Le Pre	....	hair stylist: Miss Minnelli
Raimund Stangl	....	hair stylist
Raimund Stangl	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Pia Arnold	....	production manager
Wolfram Kohtz	....	unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Wolfgang Glattes	....	assistant director
Douglas Green	....	assistant director

Art Department
Richard Eglseder	....	property master
Herbert Strabel	....	set dresser (as Herbert Strabl)

Sound Department
David Hildyard	....	sound
Robert Knudson	....	dubbing
Arthur Piantadosi	....	dubbing

Camera and Electrical Department
Herbert Fischer	....	gaffer
Lars Looschen	....	still photographer
Peter MacDonald	....	camera operator

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Ille Sievers	....	wardrobe

Editorial Department
David Ramirez	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Ralph Burns	....	conductor
Ralph Burns	....	music arranger
Ralph Burns	....	music supervisor
Fred Ebb	....	composer: additional songs
Illo Endrulat	....	music editor
Bob Fosse	....	stager: musical numbers
John Kander	....	composer: additional songs
Raoul Kraushaar	....	music coordinator
Karola Storr	....	music editor
Robert Tracy	....	music editor (as Robert N. Tracy)
Fred Werner	....	choreographic music associate

Other crew
Jutta Beil	....	dance coordinator
Bob Fosse	....	dance stager
Vic Heutschy	....	unit publicist
Jane Meagher	....	auditor
Harold Prince	....	stage producer: New York
Osman Ragheb	....	dialogue coach
John Sharpe	....	choreographic assistant
Trudy von Trotha	....	script supervisor (as Trudi Von Trotha)
Hugh Wheeler	....	research consultant

Production Companies

• ABC Pictures

Distributors

• Allied Artists Pictures (1972) (USA) (theatrical)
• American Broadcasting Company (ABC) (1975) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• F.J. Lucas (19??) (Brazil) (VHS)
• Warner Home Video (1998) (USA) (DVD) (special edition)
• Warner Home Video (2006) (USA) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Edit-Rite  sound effects
• Modern Film Effects  titles

Also Known As:

Cabaret (Belgium: French title) (Canada: French title) (France) [fr]
Cabaret (Brazil) (Portugal) [pt]
Adieu Berlin (Belgium: French title) [fr]
Cabaret (Finland) [fi]
Cabaret (West Germany) [de]
Cabaret (Argentina) [es]
Kabaré (Hungary) [hu]
Kabare (Greece) [el]
Kabare - Elveda Berlin (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Kabaret (Poland) [pl]

Runtime:

124 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German | Hebrew

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo | Dolby Digital (DVD version)

Certification:

Iceland:L | UK:15 (video rating) (1986) | UK:X (original rating) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG | West Germany:16 | Australia:M | Portugal:M/12 (DVD rating) | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Alter Bahnhof, Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

Company:

ABC Pictures

Trivia:

In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #63 Greatest Movie of All Time. It was the first inclusion of this film on the list.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The subtitles are inconsistent with how they show German speech/singing. During the opening, with Joel Grey singing in different languages, the subtitles show the German words in German. In at least one other part of the movie (when he's singing/dancing with the ape), some German words are translated into English in the subtitles. In this same ape scene, Joel is inconsistent with his pronunciation of English words that start with 'W'. Sometimes he pronounces them as if they start with a 'W', sometimes with a 'V'.

Quotes:

Sally: Mayr tells Kost's fortune every morning, and it's always the same: "You will meet a strange man." Which under the circumstances is a pretty safe bet.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Just Shoot Me!: Strange Bedfellows (#7.24)" (2003)

Soundtrack:

Maybe This Time

Divine decadence

Director Bob Fosse hasn't achieved an immense degree of recognition, but his movies have a distinctive flavour. He seems to have an obsession with the world of music-hall, which is felt in other movies like "Sweet Charity" and "All that Jazz". In his other movies though, musical performances tend to steal the show almost entirely. "Cabaret" is an exception because it has an interesting background and storyline, and the music-hall performances are cleverly used here to illustrate and emphasize the plot. They play about the same role as the Chorus in ancient Greek play.

Of course, the depiction of Cabaret's "Kit Kat Club" deserves attention all by itself. It is not surprising that a cabaret buff such as Bob Fosse took interest in the Weimar Republic period in Germany, when "divine decadence " was the name of the game. Only Bob Fosse could recreate with such consumed application the grotesque sleaze of Berlin's lowlife during the rise of Nazism, a context which served as inspiration for expressionist painters, and for Brecht's "Threepenny Opera". During the credits, check out a woman in the public with short hair and glasses smoking a cigarette (something quite dodgy in 1931!). It is the exact reproduction of a famous painting by Otto Dix.

An outrageously grinning clown (Joel Grey) introduces every cabaret number. The girls appear in all possible contorted postures keeping deadpan faces. The Kit Kat club reminds of a roman arena, where the public is out for anything insane (even women fights in the mud...). To give an idea of what sort of den the club is, Michael York finds himself at one point standing next to a transvestite in a men's urinal...The cabaret performances get all the more provocative as the plot gets tense. The club is an essentially immoral place where anything is for sale, and it adapts shamelessly to the radical political changes coming up.

Liza Minelli's character is totally at home in such surroundings. Her persona is perfectly sketched in her song "Bye Bye Mein Herr". She is the incarnation of the vamp, both heartless and ingenuous, the sort of lethal woman who drives men crazy and then gives them up like toys. Indeed, a very typical stereotype of the interwar period, think of Marlene Dietrich in "the Blue Angel"...Minelli's performance onstage with garter belts and a bowler hat still looks elegantly naughty today.

Though, the real nature of her character is well studied as soon as she gets offstage. While Minelli can't help being extravagant all the time, she turns out to be a fragile woman neglected by her father, and in demand of constant and renewed attention. As predicted in her song, she proves basically unable to engage in any serious relationship, despite her involvement with Michael York ( "And though I used to care, I need the open air, you'd every cause to doubt me Mein Herr").

The script was based a story by British writer Christopher Isherwood, called "A Goodbye to Berlin", based on his own personal memories. He is allegedly the character played by Michael York. A serious upper class young man, he meets Liza Minelli out of blind chance, while looking for an apartment to share. She introduces him to all sorts of people, from riff-raff to aristocracy, including a gigolo, a Jewish heiress, and an ambiguous baron who dismisses them both after having "played" with the two of them.

Michael York's sober performance looks a bit pale as opposed to histrionic Liza Minelli, but of course, that was necessary in order to stress the essential difference between those two strangers. The movie ends as they part on a railway platform, but one can guess their experience together will have changed them both, as as far as he is concerned, was a definite coming of age.

One of the scenes, in the middle of the movie, is quite disturbing. At a countryside inn, a young S.A man sings a song called "Tomorrow belongs to me", which starts out nostalgic but gradually turns into an infectious Nazi march as the whole crowd joins him. This unexpected number seems to have embarrassed many viewers. If Nazism had presented itself as pure evil, would it have met any success? This daring scene makes evident that it was for many Germans of the time the symbol of positive values : beauty, tradition, order, pride, future. If you didn't know how things turned out, would you not have been tempted to sing along this powerful hymn to the fatherland as you watch this? Good question to ask oneself even, or especially, nowadays...