Cabaret is one of my all-time favorite movies.  This is a truly magnificent movie,  the musical numbers are brilliant as is the direction of Bob Fosse and there are superb performances from Liza Minelli, Michael York, Helmut Greim, and Joel Grey.   After I saw this movie there was a revival on the Broadway stage and I was lucky enough to have gone to one of the performances and I even got to meet Joel Grey briefly and get his autograph which was a very nice treat.

The story comes from the book Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood.  Isherwood had lived in Berlin from 1929 to 1933 and wrote stories based on his experiences.  In 1954 playwright John van Druten wrote a play called  I Am a Camera based on some of Isherwood's vivid stories. In 1966 Isherwood's stories were made into the Broadway musical Cabaret and from that came the 1972 movie which is the subject of this review.

The setting is Berlin in 1931, two years prior to Adolf Hitler's rise to power.   The story revolves around Brian Roberts (played by Michael York), a writer from England living in Berlin.  The conservative and proper Brian meets loud and brash Sally Bowles (played by Liza Minelli) when he moves into the same flat.  Sally works as a singer at a night club called the Kit Kat Club.  The viewer is taken into the seedy world of pre-Hitler - Weimar Berlin.  The Kit Kat Club is a sleazy dive - the shows consist of suggestive performances by scantily clad women introduced by a lascivious emcee.   At the time, these types of clubs were usually referred to as "Tingeltangel" and catered to low-brow clientele.  

Sally Bowles dreams of making it as a huge film star and will not hesitate to sleep with anyone if she thinks it will help her career ambitions.   Brian forms a fast friendship with the adventuresome Sally and the two enter into a sexual relationship.  The plot takes many interesting turns not only with Sally and Brian but with other characters that come into and become intertwined in their lives, most notably Natalia Landauer, a rich Jewish heiress and Fritz Wendel, a self-confessed gigolo after her fortune; and Maximilian von Heune, a rich playboy looking for a good time.  As the movie progresses  the tone becomes more and more political.   

One of the most interesting characters of the entire movie is the 'Master of Ceremonies' brilliantly played by Joel Grey.   Interestingly he is not technically involved in the plot but rather he is a plot device.  He introduces all of the musical numbers to the audience inside of the Kit Kat Club.  These audience members have come to watch a cheap show and be entertained in order to get away from their lives - the hunger and poverty that is part of every day life in Weimar Berlin as well as the political chaos.  Slowly but surely the Nazis are becoming more and more powerful in Germany but the audiences of the Kit Kat Club are not paying attention.  They develop an attitude of hedonism and escapism.  As a young Nazi walks around the club with a tin cup collecting donations, audience members drop  money into his cup without even paying attention to him.   And the musical numbers on the stage reflect the things that are going on in the streets of Berlin.  They are used as metaphors.  So ironically the audience members are being entertained by lively musical numbers that are reflecting the very things that they are trying to escape.  In an excellent move, director Bob Fosse had a mirror put on the stage behind the performers so that when the audience members look at the stage they are seeing themselves.   Also, the 'Master of Ceremonies' introduces the story to the viewers watching the movie,  he book-ends the movie.  He appears at the very beginning and welcomes the viewers and he also appears in the same way at the very end to say goodbye.  And in between, he takes the viewers on an interesting journey into the lives of some very interesting people during one of the most fascinating periods of history.   I also want to add that the final scene of the movie is purely brilliant - I am talking about the very final scene where the credits are coming  down.  

Cabaret is not a musical where people spontaneously break out into song, all of the musical numbers take place on the stage in the Kit Kat Club.  All except for one and it happens to be one of my favorites.  It takes place at an outdoor beer garden.  People are sitting around drinking beer, talking and enjoying a sunny day while a small group of musicians play.  Suddenly someone stands up and begins to sing.  At first the camera shot is a close-up focusing on his face - he is a young blonde boy.  As he continues to sing the camera pans down to reveal that he is wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth.  The song that he is singing is called Tomorrow Belongs to Me.  The lyrics of the chorus are: Oh father and fatherland show us a sign/ Your children have waited to see/The morning will come when the world is mine/ Tomorrow belongs to me.  At first the people sitting around just watch him silently as he sings.  Suddenly someone stands up and sings with him, then another person stands, then another until almost everyone stands and joins him in song except for one person.  It is truly a brilliant metaphor for the things that were to come.  This is only one of the movie's many musical metaphors.  

The cast is spot on, each actor capturing the unique nuances of their characters.  Liza Minelli plays Sally Bowles, Michael York plays Brian Roberts, Helmut Griem plays Maximilian von Heune, Fritz Wepper plays Fritz Wendel, and Marisa Berenson plays Natalia Landauer.  The standout performance is from Joel Grey as the salacious Master of Ceremonies as he sings and dances his way into becoming one of the most memorable character of the screen.

I highly recommend this wonderful movie.  Also if you are in the mood for a good read I would recommend Berlin Stories, the book on which the movie is based.  I love Christopher Isherwood's writing style, it is so vivid and real, you can almost feel his words and descriptions. 
 

Tags: berlin stories, bob fosse, cabaret, christopher isherwood, joel grey, sally bowles
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