Cabaret (1972)

Directed by Bob Fosse. Starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Fritz Wepper, Joel Grey, Helmut Griem, Marisa Berenson, Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel. [PG]

Musical drama, liberally adapted from the Broadway show of the same name, centered primarily on American entertainer, Sally Bowles (Oscar-winner Minnelli), who performs at a Berlin cabaret theatre called the Kit Kat Club during the waning days of the Weimar Republic. Fosse’s song-and-dance numbers are dazzlingly staged, blocked, choreographed and edited (“Mein Herr” is a mini-masterpiece), and the backdrop rise of the Nazi party establishes a sinister undercurrent throughout, providing many of the movie’s most memorably dark and provocative moments. Unfortunately, the dominant storyline focusing on the relationship between Minnelli and York is rarely compelling and lacks emotional resonance; one wishes those scenes would clear out of the way so that the others can take (figurative) center stage—fishnet stockings and Fascists and transvestites, oh my! Only the ominous but flamboyant emcee (fellow Oscar-winner Grey), almost never seen offstage, truly distinguishes himself from the pack. Won several other Academy Awards (including Fosse’s direction), though it absurdly wasn’t even nominated for any of the original songs written for the film; actual nominated films The Stepmother and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean must have had too many toe-tappers…

68/100