Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50978 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-08-19
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Colour, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, German, Hebrew
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 124 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Cabaret is one of those film musicals whose cultural and stylistic influence extend well beyond the cinema. It confirmed Bob Fosse's status as one of the boldest choreographers of the 20th century and gave Liza Minnelli an early peak in a film career which would never scale such heights again. Minnelli is both the film's strength--on its own merits her performance is an Oscar-winning tour de force--and weakness. The real Sally Bowles was a third-rate performer and just one of a rich gallery of characters; here, the constant allowances for Minnelli's star turns and mannerisms ultimately throw the story off balance. But the source material is impeccable: Kander and Ebb's stage show, based on the autobiographical stories of Christopher Isherwood, has long since been acknowledged a classic. The songs, augmented by some new numbers in the film, are ageless.

Joel Grey from the original Broadway production is the Emcee, the master of ceremonies who, with his Kit Kat Klub girls, provides a depraved Greek chorus satirising the rise of the Nazi regime and the lazy complacency of the 1930s Berlin cabaret-goers. The "divine decadence" tag is only part of the story, though. Cabaret still works a sinister, uncomfortable magic which sets it apart as a uniquely powerful film musical.

On the DVD: Cabaret's 30th Anniversary Special Edition is packed with extras which include a scratchy "making of" documentary from 1972 and a retrospective from 1997, the latter featuring reminiscences from the cast. There’s also the original theatrical trailer, though in the absence of the late director Fosse the lack of some kind of commentary is a disappointment. The picture itself, presented in widescreen 16:9 letterbox format with a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack, gleams as sharply, visually and aurally, as it did on its first release. --Piers Ford

Customer Reviews

An artistic masterpiece of the 20th century
Cabaret is up there with the all time great movies. It is a sumptuous, elegantly shot cinematic classic which has stood the test of time and is as fresh to watch today as it was 30 years ago. Set in the seedy Kit-kat Club in pre-war Berlin, the story follows the entangled lives of Michael Yorke and the iconic images of Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles. With the ever present dangers of a world war breaking, the story follows Yorke/Minnelli's off-beat relationship and is accompanied by sleek choreography, an
amazing collection of songs and outstanding performances by the cast (especially Joel Grey's eerie performance as Master of Ceremonies).
This film is definitely a must-see movie,if not only for the Oscar winning performances then, watch it for the outstanding singing and dancing. This film should be in any serious film lovers collection.

A memorable work of art
At the time it was released, Cabaret drew some serious critical support - Liza Minelli appeared on the cover of Time magazine in full Cabaret costume. Her career never really got any more high profile than that.

Has the film aged well? The first thing you notice when you look at again is the almost loving way the film has been shot, especially the cabaret scenes themselves. Most of the production numbers are utterly compelling - such as the famous finale of an exuberant Sally Bowles singing "Cabaret" itself. Also watch out for another show stopper - the newly-in-love Sally singing the haunting "Maybe This Time", giving it her all before just a few tired remaining members of the audience.

The device of contrasting a pervasive sense of decadence against the rise of Nazi Germany has, however, dated badly...apart from the neat, disturbing conclusion.

The film's saving grace is that it does not stand or fall on Minnelli's performance. Joel Grey's sinister, waif-like MC is one of those happy, inspired bits of casting that transforms a good film to a great one. Michael York's stiff, well-intentioned Englishman may be far from the actual personality Isherwood, but he works well as a counterpoint to Minnelli. The sub plot of jewish gigolo marrying jewish heiress is also touching, and well handled. There are cameo performances that are equally compelling, including another famous scene of a Hitler Youth leader rousing the crowd with an Aryan folk song.

Ultimately, though, the film's reputation rests on Minnelli's performance. Sexy, she ain't, but her extraordinary voice still raises the hairs on the back of your neck if you let it. And, under firm but creative directing, she is no slouch at acting. She is by turns touching, childlike, insufferable and vulnerable. A hard act to follow.

This is a film that deserves to live on.

A piece of History - Classic!
The Weimar Republic may have been anathema to National-Socialists, but its liberalism allowed the arts to flourish in spite of economic turmoil, social strife and extreme political sub-currents. English novelist Christopher Isherwood ('Herr Izziwoo' to his students) lived in Berlin 1929-1933, supporting himself as an English language teacher, and was able to both observe and experience the somewhat seedy and unsavoury decadence of Weimar Berlin's Bohemian démi-monde, immortalizing this in the books by which he is usually remembered, Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye To Berlin. The latter book featured an American cabaret artiste of extraordinary and idiosyncratic charm, Sally Bowles. It was later dramatized as I Am A Camera by John van Druten (1951), turned into a musical Cabaret (1968), and then into an excellent and atmospheric film by Bob Fosse (1972).

Michael York ('Brian Roberts') is obviously the 'Christopher Isherwood' character, and is almost immediately fascinated by Sally Bowles' (Liza Minelli - Oscar, Best Actress) 'divine decadence' black fingernails and flamboyance. His fellow tenants reflect the gamut of German middle-class society, keenly denoting the fact that not all Germans were Nazi sympathizers ... Aristocratically-arrogant, politically-naïve and bi-sexual Baron Maximilian von Heine (Helmut Griem) seduces both Sally Bowles and equally bi-sexual Brian during a champagne-sodden weekend at his estate where, among others, many promises for the future are made, suggested or implied ... although all present are quietly aware that in the 'never-never land' that is Germany during that period it could never come to pass. The only realist is one of Brian's students, the ambiguous Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper) who is confused by his own undeclared Jewish background until his love for tormented-by-the-SA department-store empire heiress Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson) forces him to acknowledge this both to her and to himself.

Unlike most musicals, where I-feel-a-song-coming-on sees the cast rather unrealistically erupt into song and dance, Cabaret's songs and acts occur only within the Kit-Kat Club, which is masterfully hosted by its falsetto Emcee (Joel Grey - utterly-deserved Oscar, Best Supporting Actor!) - the epitome of the city's and the period's arty decadence. The one exception is an outdoor scene at a lunch-time Landesgasthof where the healthy young Nordic singers of the rousing Tomorrow Belongs To Me are slowly revealed to be a squad of Hitlerjugend, 'recruiting' - successfully, as it turns out - with their discipline and earnestness many uncommitted elements of the German public.

Particularly striking is the unseen menace during Emcee's obviously final performance on what is probably 1st February, 1933, as Germany - until that very date culturally thriving - is plunged back into the Dark Ages for the next twelve years. In the Kit-Kat Club's silverware is reflected that evening's audience: all unamused, all unsmiling, and all NSDAP ...

NOTE: upon the assumption of power, the Nazis almost immediately closed-down all night-clubs, music-halls, musea and numerous other cultural establishments deemed purveyors of Entartete Kunst (decadent art).