- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Liza Minnelli was born to play the lead role of Sally Bowles in the film version of Cabaret, and Joel Grey’s turn as the Emcee is also frighteningly great.
Cabaret – Original Movie Soundtrack (1972): I used to tell people that I didn’t like musicals, but after an old friend of Charlie’s told us about Cabaret, I don’t think that way anymore. I still get a little annoyed sometimes when a cast member in a musical bursts out into song for no particular reason, but that wasn’t a problem here: Almost all of the songs are actually performances at a sleazy Berlin nightclub called the Kit Kat Club. Liza Minnelli was born to play the lead role of Sally Bowles, and Joel Grey’s turn as the Emcee is also frighteningly great. Both Minnelli and Grey won Oscars for their performances, as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively; in fact, Cabaret still holds the record for the most Oscar wins by any film that was not given the Best Picture Academy Award (8 in all, out of 10 nominations). The first time that Peggy and I went out on a real date was to a stage performance of Cabaret (I think at the Beau Rivage), a mostly grim story about the rise of the Nazi Party against the backdrop of the decadent entertainment scene in Germany at that time.
The film is more light-hearted and even funny in many places – unexpected, sure, but Hogan’s Heroes remains a popular sitcom that is set in a Nazi POW camp, with episodes still airing regularly on my satellite TV. However, I am definitely glad to have seen the stage version of Cabaret also. Since the album has only the musical selections, following the storyline is sometimes not immediately obvious – unlike, say, Evita which is completely sung through. Early on, a couple of men in Nazi uniforms are hustled out of the nightclub, and the Emcee mocks Nazi goosestepping in one number. But by the final song, “If You Could See Her”, the Emcee’s girlfriend is someone in a gorilla costume, with the offensive line about being Jewish at the end. As the film fades out, a distorted shot of the audience in the Kit Kat Club shows numerous people wearing Nazi uniforms.