| Cabaret | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Bob Fosse |
| Screenplay by | Jay Presson Allen[a] |
| Based on |
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| Produced by | Cy Feuer |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Geoffrey Unsworth |
| Edited by | David Bretherton |
| Music by |
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Production company | |
| Distributed by | Allied Artists |
Release date |
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Running time | 124 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4.6 million[2] |
| Box office | $42.8 million[3] |
Cabaret is a 1972 Americanmusicaldrama film directed and choreographed byBob Fosse from a screenplay byJay Presson Allen. It is based onthe 1966 stage musical byJoe Masteroff (book) and the duoKander and Ebb (music),[4] which in turn was based on the 1951 playI Am a Camera byJohn Van Druten and the 1939 novelGoodbye to Berlin byChristopher Isherwood.[4][5] It starsLiza Minnelli,Michael York,Helmut Griem,Marisa Berenson, andJoel Grey. Multiple numbers from the stage score were used for the film, which also featured three other songs by Kander and Ebb, including two written for the adaptation.[6][7]
In the traditional manner of musical theater, most major characters in the stage version sing to express their emotions and advance the plot; in the film, however, the musical numbers are almost entirelydiegetic and take place inside the club,[6][5] with the exception of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me", which is not performed in the club or by the club characters, but is still diegetic, a nationalistic song sung by a Nazi youth and the German crowd.[8]
Cabaret was released in the United States on February 13, 1972, byAllied Artists. The film received critical acclaim and eventually earned more than $42 million in the box office against a production budget of $4.6 million.[4][6][3][9][10] At the45th Academy Awards, the film won in eight categories - includingBest Director (Fosse),Best Actress (Minnelli),Best Supporting Actor (Grey), andBest Score - holding therecord for most Oscars earned by a film not honored for Best Picture. In 1995,Cabaret was selected by theLibrary of Congress for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[11][12]
In 1931Berlin, a young, openly promiscuous American,Sally Bowles, performs at the Kit Kat Klub. A new British arrival in the city, Brian Roberts, moves into the boarding house where Sally lives. A reserved academic and writer, Brian must give English lessons to earn a living while completing his doctorate. Sally tries to seduce Brian, but he tells her that on three previous occasions he has tried to have sexual relationships with women, all of which failed. They become friends, and Brian witnesses Sally's bohemian life in the last days of theWeimar Republic. When Brian consoles Sally after her father cancels his meeting with her, they become lovers, concluding that his previous failures with women were because they were "the wrong three girls".
Maximilian von Heune, a rich, married playboy and baron, befriends Sally and takes her and Brian to his country estate where they are both spoiled and courted. After a somewhat enigmatic experience with Brian, Max drops his pursuit of the pair in haste. During an argument, Sally tells Brian that she has been having sex with Max, and Brian reveals that he has as well. Brian and Sally later reconcile, and Sally reveals that Max left them 300marks and mockingly compares the sum with what a professional prostitute earns.
Sally learns that she is pregnant but is unsure of the father. Brian offers to marry her and take her back to his university life inCambridge. At first, they celebrate their resolution to start this new life together, but after a picnic between Sally and Brian, in which Brian acts distant and uninterested, Sally becomes disheartened by the vision of herself as a bored faculty wife washing dirty diapers. Ultimately, she has an abortion, without informing Brian in advance. When he confronts her, she shares her fears, and the two reach an understanding. Brian departs for England, and Sally continues her life in Berlin, embedding herself in the Kit Kat Klub.
Meanwhile, Fritz Wendel, a German Jew passing as aProtestant Christian, is in love with Natalia Landauer, a wealthy German Jewish heiress who holds him in contempt and suspects his motives. Through Brian, Sally advises him to be more aggressive, which eventually enables Fritz to win her love. However, to gain her parents' consent for their marriage, Fritz must reveal his Jewish background, which he does and the two are married by arabbi.
Therise of Fascism in Europe is an ever-present undercurrent and is the overarching plot of the film. The progress of the primary characters can be tracked through their changing actions and attitudes towards the everrising tide of German Nazism in the Weimar Republic. In the beginning of the film, amember of the Nazi Party is expelled from the Kit Kat Klub by the club manager, who suffers a subsequent beating.
Therise of the Nazis in the 1930s is also demonstrated towards the end of the film in a rural beer garden scene. There, a blond boy sings to an audience of all ages ("Tomorrow Belongs to Me") about the beauties of nature and youth. It is eventually revealed that the boy is wearing aHitlerjugend uniform. The ballad then transforms into a militantNazi anthem, and by the song's end, one by one nearly all of the adults and young people rise and join in the singing. "Do you still think you can control them?" Brian then asks Max. After the beer garden scene, Brian gets into a confrontation with a Nazi on a Berlin street, which leads to his receiving a beating.
In the final scene of the film in the Kit Kat Klub, it slowly becomes apparent in the hazy club that audience members wearingNSDAP uniforms are now sitting in the preferred front seats of the club.
The 1972 film was based upon Christopher Isherwood's semi-autobiographical stories aboutWeimar-era Berlin during theJazz Age.[13][14] In 1929, Isherwood moved to Berlin in order to pursue life as an openly gay man and to enjoy the city's libertine nightlife.[13][14] Hisexpatriate social circle includedW.H. Auden,Stephen Spender,Paul Bowles, andJean Ross.[15][16] While in Berlin, Isherwood shared lodgings with Ross, a British cabaret singer and aspiring film actress from a wealthy Anglo-Scottish family.[17][18]
While rooming together atNollendorfstrasse 17 inSchöneberg,[17][18] Isherwood and Ross met John Blomshield, a wealthy playboy who inspired the film character of Baron Maximilian von Heune.[19][20] Blomshield sexually pursued both Isherwood and Ross for a short while, and he invited them to accompany him on a trip abroad. He then abruptly disappeared without saying goodbye.[21][19][20]
Following Blomshield's disappearance, Ross became pregnant with the child of jazz pianist and later actorPeter van Eyck.[22][18] After Eyck abandoned Ross, she underwent a near-fatalabortion facilitated by Isherwood, who pretended to have fathered her pregnancy.[22][18][23][24]
While Ross recovered from thebotched abortion procedure,[22] the political situationrapidly deteriorated in Germany.[16] As Berlin's daily scenes featured "poverty, unemployment, political demonstrations and street fighting between the forces of theextreme left and theextreme right,"[15] Isherwood, Spender, and other British nationals realized that they must flee the country.[16] "There was a sensation of doom to be felt in the Berlin streets," Spender recalled.[16]
By the timeAdolf Hitler implemented theEnabling Act of 1933 which cemented his dictatorship, Isherwood, Ross, Spender, and others had fled Germany and returned to England.[25][17][18] Many of the Berlin cabaret denizens befriended by Isherwood would later flee abroad[26]: 164–166 or perish inconcentration camps.[26]: 150, 297 [27]: 74–81 These factual events served as the genesis for Isherwood's 1937 novellaSally Bowles, which was later adapted into the 1955 filmI Am a Camera and the 1966 musicalCabaret.[24][28]
In July 1968,Cinerama made a verbal agreement to make a film version of the 1966 Broadway musical but pulled out in February 1969.[7][29][30] In May 1969,Allied Artists paid a company record $1.5 million for the film rights and planned a company record budget.[7][29][30] The cost of $4,570,000 was split evenly withABC Pictures.[7][30][2]
In 1971,Bob Fosse learned throughHarold Prince, director of the original Broadway production, thatCy Feuer was producing a film adaptation ofCabaret through ABC Pictures and Allied Artists.[7] This was the first film produced in the revival of Allied Artists. Determined to direct the film, Fosse begged Feuer to hire him.[7] However, Fosse had previously directed the unsuccessful film adaptation ofSweet Charity, a box office failure which made chief executives Manny Wolf andMarty Baum reluctant to hire him.[7] Wolf and Baum preferred a more renowned or established director such asBilly Wilder,Joseph L. Mankiewicz orGene Kelly.[7][31]: 134
Eager to hire Fosse, Feuer appealed to the studio heads, citing Fosse's talent for staging and shooting musical numbers, adding that if inordinate attention was given to filming the book scenes at the expense of the musical numbers, the whole film could fail. Fosse ultimately was hired. Over the next months, Fosse met with previously hired screenwriter Jay Presson Allen to discuss the screenplay.[31]: 136–139
As production neared, Fosse became increasingly dissatisfied with Allen's script which was based onJoe Masteroff's original book of the stage version. Fosse hiredHugh Wheeler to rewrite and revise Allen's work.[31]: 136–139 Wheeler was referred to as a "research consultant," and Allen retained screenwriting credit. Wheeler, a friend of Christopher Isherwood,[32] knew that Isherwood had been critical of the stage musical due to itsbowdlerizations of his material.[32] Wheeler went back to Isherwood's original stories in order to ensure a more faithful adaptation of the source material. In particular, Wheeler restored the subplot about the gigolo and the Jewish heiress. Wheeler also drew on gay author Christopher Isherwood's openness about his homosexuality to make the leading male character a bisexual man "rather than the heterosexual as he had been in the stage musical."[31]: 139
Fosse decided to increase the focus on the Kit Kat Klub, where Sally performs, as a metaphor for the decadence of Germany in the 1930s by eliminating all but one of the musical numbers performed outside the club. The only remaining outside number is "Tomorrow Belongs to Me",[8] a folk song rendered spontaneously by patrons at an open-air café.[5] In addition, the show's original songwriters Kander and Ebb wrote two new songs, "Mein Herr" and "Money", and incorporated "Maybe This Time", a song they composed in 1964 and first released byKaye Ballard.[33][34]
Feuer had castLiza Minnelli asSally Bowles andJoel Grey (reprising his stage role) long before Fosse was attached to the project. Fosse was given the choice of using Grey as Master of Ceremonies, at studio insistence, or walking away from the production.[31]: 147-148 He ultimately backed down on his “It’s either me or Joel” threat, but relations between them were cool.[35]
Fosse hiredMichael York as Sally Bowles's bisexual love interest, a casting choice which Minnelli initially believed was incorrect until she performed with him.[31]: 146 Several smaller roles, as well as the remaining four dancers in the film, eventually were cast in West Germany.
Minnelli had auditioned to play Sally in the original Broadway production but was deemed too inexperienced at the time, even though she had won Broadway'sTony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. By the timeCabaret reached the screen, however, Minnelli was a film star having earned an Oscar nomination as the emotionally damaged college student inThe Sterile Cuckoo (1969).
For her performance as Sally in the film, Minnelli reinterpreted the character and—at the explicit suggestion of her father, film and stage directorVincente Minnelli[36]—she deliberately imitated film actressLouise Brooks, aflapper icon and sex symbol of theJazz Age.[36][31]: 142 Brooks, much like the character of Sally Bowles in the film, was an aspiring actress and American expat who temporarily moved to Weimar Berlin in search of international stardom.[31]: 139 Minnelli later recalled:
"I went to my father and asked him, 'What can you tell me about 1930s glamour? Should I be emulatingMarlene Dietrich or something?' And he said 'No, study everything you can aboutLouise Brooks.'"[36]
In particular, Minnelli drew upon Brooks' "Lulu makeup andhelmet-like coiffure."[31]: 142 For the meeting between Sally Bowles and Brian Roberts, Minnelli modeled her movements and demeanor upon Brooks; in particular, the scene inPandora's Box (1929) where Brooks' carefree character of Lulu is first introduced.[31] Ultimately, Minnelli would win theAcademy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Sally Bowles.[37]
Fosse and Feuer traveled to West Germany in order to finish assembling the film crew. During this time, Fosse highly recommendedRobert L. Surtees for cinematographer, but Feuer and the top executives saw Surtees's work onSweet Charity as one of the film's many artistic problems. Producers eventually chose British cinematographerGeoffrey Unsworth.[31]: 138, 149 DesignersRolf Zehetbauer,Hans Jürgen Kiebach andHerbert Strabel served as production designers.Charlotte Flemming designed costumes.[31]: 205 DancersKathryn Doby, Louise Quick and John Sharpe were brought on as Fosse's dance aides.
Rehearsals and filming took place entirely in West Germany. For reasons of economy, indoor scenes were shot at theBavaria Film Studios inGrünwald,[31]: 143 outside Munich.[7][31]: 146 Prior to filming, Fosse would complain every afternoon on the set ofWilly Wonka & the Chocolate Factory because that film was overrunning and keeping him from starting work on the same stage.[38]
Although the songs throughout the film allude to and advance the narrative, every song except "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" is executed in the context of a Kit Kat Klub performance.[39][8] The voice heard on the radio reading the news throughout the film in German was that of associate producer Harold Nebenzal, whose fatherSeymour Nebenzahl produced such notableWeimar films asM (1931),Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), andThreepenny Opera (1931).
The film significantly differs from the Broadway musical. In the stage version, Sally is English (as she was in Isherwood'sGoodbye to Berlin). In the film adaptation, she is American.[6] Cliff Bradshaw was renamed Brian Roberts and made British (as was Isherwood, upon whom the character was based), rather than American as in the stage version.[6][31]: 139 The characters and plotlines involving Fritz, Natalia and Max were pulled fromI Am a Camera and did not appear in the stage production ofCabaret (or inGoodbye to Berlin).[32]
The most significant change involves the excision of the two main characters: Fraulein Schneider, who runs a boarding house, and her love interest, Herr Schultz, a German grocer.[31]: 34 Their doomed romance plot, and the consequences of a Gentile falling in love with a Jew during the rise of antisemitism, was cut. With the removals were "So What?" and "What Would You Do", sung by Schneider, the song "Meeskite", sung by Schultz,[31]: 83 and their two duets "It Couldn't Please Me More (The Pineapple Song)" (cut) and "Married" (reset as a piano instrumental, and a phonograph record), as well as a short reprise of "Married", sung alone by Schultz.[40][31]: 34, 83
Kander and Ebb wrote several new songs and removed others.[6][7] "Don't Tell Mama" was replaced by "Mein Herr",[31]: 143 and "The Money Song" (retained in an instrumental version as "Sitting Pretty") was replaced by "Money, Money."[31]: 141–43 "Mein Herr" and "Money, Money", which were composed for the film, were integrated into the stage musical alongside the original numbers.[31]: 141–43 The song "Maybe This Time", which Sally performs at the cabaret, predates the stage musical, recorded by Minnelli in 1964.[31]: 141–43 [41] Although "Don't Tell Mama" and "Married" were removed as featured musical numbers, both still appear in the film instrumentally: the bridge section of "Mama" is heard playing on Sally's gramophone; "Married" initially plays on the piano in Fraulein Schneider's parlor, and later heard on Sally's gramophone in a German translation ("Heiraten") sung by cabaret singerGreta Keller.[31]: 155 Additionally, "If You Could See Her", performed by the MC, originally concluded with the line "She isn't a meeskite at all" onstage. The film changes this to "She wouldn't look Jewish at all," a return to Ebb's original lyrics.[42]
All tracks are written byJohn Kander and Fred Ebb.
| No. | Title | Performer | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Willkommen" | Joel Grey | 4:29 |
| 2. | "Mein Herr" | Liza Minnelli | 3:36 |
| 3. | "Maybe This Time" | Liza Minnelli | 3:11 |
| 4. | "Money, Money" | Joel Grey, Liza Minnelli | 3:04 |
| 5. | "Two Ladies" | Joel Grey | 3:11 |
| 6. | "Sitting Pretty" | Instrumental | 2:27 |
| 7. | "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" | Mark Lambert[7] | 3:06 |
| 8. | "Tiller Girls" | Joel Grey | 1:41 |
| 9. | "Heiraten (Married)" | Greta Keller | 3:45 |
| 10. | "If You Could See Her" | Joel Grey | 3:54 |
| 11. | "Cabaret" | Liza Minnelli | 3:34 |
| 12. | "Finale" | Joel Grey | 2:28 |
| Total length: | 38:14 | ||
The film opened at theZiegfeld Theatre in New York City on February 13, 1972, with a single performance benefit grossing $2,538.[45] It started regular showings at the Ziegfeld from February 14, grossing $8,684 in its opening day, and a house record $80,278 for the week.[46][45] It grossed another $165,038 from 6 other theatres in 6 key cities reported byVariety, placing it tenth at the US box office.[47] After seven months of release, it had grossed $5.3 million in the New York metropolitan area.Variety estimated that this represented 30% of the film's total compared to the normal 15% for the market, one of the few big-budget films to perform much better in New York.[48] Based on this estimate, the film had grossed around $17 million. By year end,Variety reported that it had earnedtheatrical rentals of $10,885,000, making it the eighth most successful film of the year.[49] Following the film's success at the Academy Awards in March 1973, it reachednumber one at the US box office with a gross of $1,880,000 for the week, a record for Allied Artists.[50][51] It remained number one for a second week.[52] By May 1973, the film had earned rentals of $16 million in the United States and Canada and $7 million in other countries and reported a profit of $4,904,000.[2] By the end of 1973,Variety had updated the film's rentals in the United States and Canada to $18,175,000.[53]
Variety claimed the film received the most "sugary" reviews of the year.[54]Roger Ebert gave a positive review in January 1972, saying: "This is no ordinary musical. Part of its success comes because it doesn't fall for the old cliché that musicals have to make you happy. Instead of cheapening the movie version by lightening its load of despair, director Bob Fosse has gone right to the bleak heart of the material and stayed there well enough to win anAcademy Award for Best Director."[9]
A.D. Murphy ofVariety wrote "The film version of the 1966 John Kander-Fred Ebb Broadway musicalCabaret is most unusual: it is literate, bawdy, sophisticated, sensual, cynical, heart-warming, and disturbingly thought-provoking. Liza Minnelli heads a strong cast. Bob Fosse's generally excellent direction recreates the milieu of Germany some 40 years ago."[4]
Roger Greenspun ofThe New York Times wrote in February 1972 that "Cabaret is one of those immensely gratifying imperfect works in which from beginning to end you can literally feel a movie coming to life."[6] Likewise,Pauline Kael ofThe New Yorker wrote a review that same month in which she applauded the film:
"A great movie musical. Taking its form from political cabaret, it's a satire of temptations. In a prodigious balancing act, Bob Fosse, the choreographer-director, keeps the period—Berlin, 1931—at a cool distance. We see the decadence as garish and sleazy; yet we also see the animal energy in it—everything seems to become sexualized. The movie does not exploit decadence; rather, it gives it its due. With Joel Grey as our devil-doll host—the master of ceremonies—and Liza Minnelli (in her first singing role on the screen) as exuberant, corruptibleSally Bowles, chasing after the life of a headliner no matter what; Minnelli has such gaiety and electricity that she becomes a star before our eyes."[10]
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AlthoughCabaret (1972) was well received by film critics upon its release,[6][9][4][10] author Christopher Isherwood and other persons upon whom the film's characters were based were less receptive towards the cinematic adaptation.[15][26]: 63 Isherwood himself was critical of the 1972 film due to what he perceived as its negative portrayal of homosexuality:
"In the film ofCabaret, the male lead is called Brian Roberts. He is a bisexual Englishman; he has an affair with Sally and, later, with one of Sally's lovers, a German baron...Brian's homosexual tendency is treated as an indecent but comic weakness to be snickered at, like bed-wetting."[26]: 63
Similarly, Isherwood's friendJean Ross—upon whom the character of Sally Bowles was based[55]: 26 —was ambivalent about the film.[56]: 70 She felt the depiction of 1930s Berlin "was quite, quite different" from reality.[57]: 33–34 Nevertheless, she conceded that the depiction of their social circle of British expatriates as pleasure-seeking libertines was accurate: "We were all utterly against the bourgeois standards of our parents' generation. That's what took us to [Weimar-era] Berlin. The climate was freer there."[57]: 33–34 Such ambivalence towardsCabaret (1972) was not unique among Isherwood's circle.[15]
The poetStephen Spender lamented howCabaret (1972) glossed over Weimar Berlin's crushing poverty:
"There is not a single meal, or club, in the movieCabaret, that Christopher [Isherwood] and I could have afforded [in 1931]. What we mostly knew was the Berlin of poverty, unemployment, political demonstrations and street fighting between forces of the extreme left and the extreme right."[15]
Both Spender and Ross contended that the 1972 film and 1966 Broadway musical deleteriously glamorized the harsh realities of the 1930s Weimar era.[15][57]: 33–34
In 2002, Jamie Russell of the BBC wrote that the film was "the first musical ever to be given anX certificate, Bob Fosse'sCabaret launched Liza Minnelli into Hollywood superstardom and re-invented the musical for the Age of Aquarius."[39] In 2013, film criticPeter Bradshaw listedCabaret at number one on his list of "Top 10 Musicals", describing it as "satanically catchy, terrifyingly seductive...directed and choreographed with electric style by Bob Fosse...Cabaret is drenched in the sexiest kind of cynicism and decadent despair."[58] In 2024,Forbes ranked Cabaret as the best movie musical of all time[59]
Although less explicit compared with other films made in the 1970s,Cabaret dealt explicitly with topics like corruption, sexual ambiguity, false dreams, and Nazism. Tim Dirks atFilmsite.org notes: "The sexually-charged, semi-controversial, kinky musical was the first one ever to be given an X rating (although later re-rated) with its numerous sexual flings and hedonistic club life. There was considerable sexual innuendo, profanity, casual sex talk (homosexual and heterosexual), some evidence ofanti-Semitism, and even an abortion in the film."[60] It was also ratedX in the UK and later re-rated as 15.[39][61]
On the topic of Nazism, there was little consensus among critics about the possibly fascist implications of the film and play. However, critic Steven Belletto wrote a critique ofCabaret in theCriticism journal, published by Wayne State University Press, in which he highlighted the anti-fascist themes in the film present both within and outside of the musical acts. According to Belletto, "despite the ways that the film has been understood by a variety of critics, [Cabaret] rejects the logic of fascist certainty by staging various numbers committed to irony and ambiguity."[42]
The "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" scene was controversial, with Kander and Ebb, both of whom were Jewish, sometimes being wrongly accused of using ahistorical Nazi song.[62] According to an article inVariety in November 1976, the film was censored inWest Berlin when it was first released there theatrically, with the sequence featuring theHitler Youth singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" having been deleted.[7] This elimination was made "because of the feeling that it might stir up resentments in the audience by showing the sympathizers for the Nazi movement during the '30s."[7] The sequence was restored, however, when the film was shown onWest German television on November 7, 1976.[7]
Another topic of discussion was the song "If You Could See Her",[63] which closed with the line: "If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all." The point of the song was showing anti-Semitism as it begins to run rampant in Berlin, but there were a number of Jewish groups who interpreted the lyrics differently.[64]
Cabaret earned a total of ten Academy Award nominations (winning eight of them) and holds therecord for most Academy Awards for a film that did not also win Best Picture.[7][65]
Shortly before theAcademy Awards,Bob Fosse won twoTony Awards for directing and choreographingPippin, his biggest stage hit. Months later, he won thePrimetime Emmy Award for choreographing and directingLiza Minnelli's television specialLiza with a Z, thereby becoming the first director to win all three awards in one year.
Inducted into theNational Film Registry in 1995 among a list of 25 Films that year.[11]
Cabaret has been cited byTV Guide as among the greatest films made[77] and inMovieline magazine as one of the "100 Best Movies Ever".[78] It was included inFilm4's "100 Greatest Films of All Time" at #78[79] and inThe San Francisco Chronicle's "Hot 100 Films of the Past", being hailed as "the last great musical. Liza Minnelli plays Sally Bowles, an American adrift in pre-Nazi Berlin, in Bob Fosse's stylish, near-perfect film."[80]
David Benedict has written inThe Guardian aboutCabaret's influence in musical films: "Back then, musicals were already low on film-goers' lists, so how come it was such a success? Simple:Cabaret is the musical for people who hate them. Given the vibrancy of its now iconic numbers – Liza Minnelli inbowler and black suspenders astride a bentwood chair belting out 'Mein Herr' or shimmying and shivering with pleasure over 'Money' with Joel Grey – it sounds strange to say it, but one of the chief reasons whyCabaret is so popular is that it's not shot like a musical."[8]
The film has been listed as one of the most important forqueer cinema for its depictions of bisexuality,[6] arguably transgressive at the time of its 1972post-Code release and has been credited with turning Liza Minnelli into agay icon. Film blogs have selected it as "the gayest winner in the history of the Academy."[81][82][83] FilmmakerBill Condon cited the film as a source of inspiration for his2025 adaptation of Kander and Ebb's stage musical version ofKiss of the Spider Woman.[84][85]
The February 2020 issue ofNew York Magazine listsCabaret as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."[86]
The film was first released toDVD in 1998. There have been releases in 2003, 2008, and 2012. The film's international ancillary distribution rights are owned by ABC (now part ofThe Walt Disney Company),Fremantle (UK),Warner Bros. (which acquired the film as part of its purchase ofLorimar Productions, which had acquired the film library ofAllied Artists) has US domestic distribution rights.
In April 2012, Warner unveiled a new restoration of the film at theTCM Classic Film Festival.[87][88][89] A DigiBook edition was later released onBlu-ray on February 5, 2013.[90] Before this restoration,Cabaret had been sold on astandard-definition DVD from Warner Bros., but the film was unavailable inhigh-definition or fordigital projections in cinemas.[89] The original camera negative is lost, and a survivinginterpositive had a vertical scratch that ran through 1,000 feet, or 10 minutes, of one of its reels, as confirmed by Ned Price, vice president of mastering and restoration for Warner Bros.[89] The damage ostensibly was inflicted by a grain of dirt that had rolled through the length of the reel, beginning with a scene in which Michael York's character confronts a pro-Nazi boarding house resident, and had cut into the emulsion.[89] The marred frames were digitally restored, but "the difficult part was matching the grain structure so the fix was invisible." After automated digital repair attempts failed, the 1,000 feet of damaged film was hand painted using a computer stylus.[89]
Warner Archive Collection reissued the Blu-ray on November 20, 2018, without the DigiBook.[91]
The best Nazi song is by Jewish songwriters. As with "Ol' Man River", when Cabaret called for an ostensibly innocent pastoral hymn to German nationalism, John Kander and Fred Ebb turned in such a plausible doppelganger that it was immediately denounced as a grossly offensive Nazi anthem. "The accusations against Tomorrow Belongs To Me' made me very angry", says Fred Ebb. "'I knew that song as a child', one man had the audacity to tell me. A rabbinical person wrote to me saying he had absolute proof it was a Nazi song." It wasn't: it was written in the mid-Sixties for a Broadway musical. But today, it's the only Nazi song we all know: On election night 1987, when Spitting Image decided to draw some "crass parallels" between Mrs Thatcher and another strong leader, they opted to show the Tories singing not the Horst Wessel song, but "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" – secure in the knowledge that we'd all get the joke.
Francesco Mismirigo,Cabaret, un film allemand, Université de Genève, 1984
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