A female girlie club entertainer in Weimar Republic era Berlin romances two men while the Nazi Party rises to power around them.
Director: Bob Fosse
Stars: Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Joel Grey, Fritz Wepper, Marisa Berenson.
Bob Fosse ... musical numbers staged by
Jutta Beil ... dance co-ordinator
John Sharpe ... choreographic assistant
14 songs in the Soundtracks, all Written by John Kander and Fred Ebb; only 10 with performers.
Rated 5 on 2010-01-31. I still don't like it, but it's well-made, and according to the featurettes, accomplished what Fosse wanted. The characters are unsavory, and the story unpleasant.
It certainly gives a strong impression of the decadent side of society in Berlin during the pre-Nazi era, and it shows some negative aspects of the Nazis. The fact that the Nazis hated this sort of decadence just goes to show that even the most evil regime wasn't wrong about everything.
My complaint about the way it looks: too many closeups. That may have been deliberate, to make us feel uncomfortable. That works.
Per the featurettes, it's not intended to be a musical. I'll buy that.
It's not a filming of the stage musical. Again per the featurettes, they started from the source Isherwood stories, and used some of the B'way songs, omitted others, and had 3 new songs written by Kander & Ebb. So this doesn't help my understand why the B'way show was popular ('66-9, 1165 perfs).
But the big question is why did this win 8 Oscars? Minnelli, Grey and Fosse, plus tech stuff. (The Godfather won Best Picture.)
So I still don't like it, an am not willing to buy a newer release to see what it really looks like.
ABC Pictures, dir. Fosse; 6-
