Cabaret (1972)

Director:

Bob Fosse

Writers:

Joe Masteroff (book)
John Van Druten (play)

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

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:

Liza Minnelli designed all her own hair and make-up with the help of her father, famed musical director Vincente Minnelli.

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: My God! It's enough to drive a girl into a convent! Do they have Jewish nuns?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: Eddie Murphy/Robert Plant & The Honeydrippers (#10.9)" (1984)

Soundtrack:

Sitting Pretty

Perfect On All Levels

On a historical level, a personal-story level, and as pure entertainment "Cabaret" works perfectly. The scene is Berlin, Germany, only two years before Hitler would come to total power. It is the Berlin that Christopher Isherwood lived in and wrote about: poverty, drug and alcohol escapism, criminals, sleazebags, fighting in the streets, venereal disease, the prostitution of both sexes, the desperation to escape through the film industry, the temporary escape from the harshness of life in "naughty" nightclubs like The Kit Kat Club, which encapsulates it all. It's a bad scene, and a good example of, perhaps, why so many Germans felt in need of a Hitler. There's not a single verbal reference to Hitler, and yet the presence of the growing Nazi movement all around these decadent misfits is ever present in this film. But you can't blame any of these apolitical people for that. Liza Minelli and Michael York's characters are so needy, so desperate just to find some personal happiness in life. They can't be bothered with what's going on in the bigger picture. Except for the Master Of Ceremonies at the Club: Joel Grey's character is a semi-supernatural all-seeing character, mocking, seeming to somehow know EXACTLY the further destruction Germany's headed for. His scary all-knowing grinning face pops in regularly to remind us. The musical number "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" is so effective an illustration of the appeal this new Nazi hope held for impoverished suffering Germans, and yet we have The Master Of Ceremonies' evil nodding grin to remind us, in retrospect, what it really led to.Just as every musical number (aside from being so beautifully choreographed and presented) reminds us of the desperation in Sally Bowles' life and in most of Germany. "Money Makes The World Go Around" is a perfect musical number, and so illustrative of the horrendous financial state of Germany at the time. Joel Grey's raunchy "Two Ladies" on the Kit Kat stage to the hysterical delight of the decadent crowd reminds us that all sexual propriety has broken down (including in the lives of the main characters, now involved in a threeway with one of the few Germans who still has some wealth intact). Everyone who wants an example of the artistic heights that film can reach should see "Cabaret".